THE SARMATIAN REVIEW

Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 January 2013 Death of a Poet Tadeusz Gajcy (1922–1944)

Tadeusz Gajcy, one of the three young poet-soldiers killed in the Warsaw Rising on 16 August 1944. Consigned to oblivion by Jakub Berman and his fellow communist ideologues in Soviet-occupied Poland, he is now being rediscovered. He has been compared to Niccolo Paganini playing a Stradivarius. Photo courtesy of the Jarosław and Anna Iwaszkiewicz Museum in Stawisko, Poland (stawisko.pl). 1712 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013

The Sarmatian Review (ISSN 1059- Agata Brajerska-Mazur, A Strange Richard J. Hunter, Jr., is Professor 5872) is a triannual publication of the Polish Institute Poet: A Commentary on Cyprian of Legal Studies and Chair, of Houston. The journal deals with Polish, Central, Kamil Norwid’s Verse ...... 1723 Department of Economics and and Eastern European affairs, and it explores their implications for the United States. We specialize in Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Fatum and W Legal Studies, Stillman School of the translation of documents.Sarmatian Review is Weronie, translated by Patrick Business, Seton Hall University, indexed in the American Bibliography of Slavic and Corness ...... 1727 South Orange, New Jersey. East European Studies, EBSCO, and P.A.I.S. Leo V. Ryan, C.S.V. and Richard J. International Database. 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Box 79119, Thank You Note ...... 1738 Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821– Houston, Texas 77279–9119. 1883) is one of the great poets of The Sarmatian Review retains the copyright for all Polish Romanticism. materials included in print and online issues. Copies for personal or educational use are permitted by section James E. Reid, a Canadian writer, 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Permission has been writing for Sarmatian to redistribute, republish, or use SR materials in About the Authors Review since 2007. advertising or promotion must be submitted in writing to the Editor. Leo V. Ryan, C.S.V., is Professor Editor: Ewa Thompson (Rice University) Agata Brajerska-Mazur is and Dean Emeritus, Kellstadt Associate Editors: Tamara Trojanowska (University of Toronto), Bogdan Czaykowski, 1932–2007 Associate Professor of Comparative School of Management, DePaul (University of British Columbia) Literature at the Catholic University University, Chicago, Illinois. Editorial Advisory Committee: George Gasyna of Lublin. Božena Shallcross is Professor of (University of Illinois-Urbana), Janusz A. Ihnatowicz (University of Saint Thomas-Houston), Bozena Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is Slavic Languages and Literatures at Karwowska (University of British Columbia), Joseph Professor of History and Dean of the University of Chicago. A.Kotarba (University of Houston), Marcus D. Arts and Sciences at The Institute Leuchter, 1909–2008 (Holocaust Museum Houston),Witold J. Lukaszewski (Sam Houston State of World Politics in Washington, University), Theresa Kurk McGinley (North Harris DC. His most recent book is College-Houston), Michael J. MikoÊ(University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Jan Rybicki (Kraków Intermarium: The Land between the Pedagogical University), Dariusz Skórczewski Black and Baltic Seas (Transaction (Catholic University of Lublin), Piotr Wilczek Publishers, 2012). (University of Warsaw) Copy Editor: Cyndy Brown Patrick Corness is a British scholar Web Pages: Jane Zhao (Rice University) and translator associated with the Web Address: . University of Leeds. He has Alternate Web Address: Central and East European Online Library under translated Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Periodicals>United States>Sarmatian Review. Czech, and Polish literary and Archival Web Address: http://scholarship.rice.edu/ handle/1911/21840. scholarly texts including drama and poetry by Polish eighteenth-century In this issue: writer Franciszka Urszula About the Authors...... 1711 Radziwiłłowa. Brigitte Gautier, Overcoming the Burden of Brigitte Gautier is Associate History: The Poetry of Tadeusz Gajcy, Professor of Polish at the Charles de Czesław Miłosz, and Zbigniew Herbert . . Gaulle University in Lille, France...... 1715 Spring flowers: Êniežyczka. January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1713 Sarmatian Review Data Sobering data on fake Internet and journal book reviews Number of self-published books in the United States in 2006 and 2011, respectively: 51,237 and over 300,000. Price of a glowing Web review (as ordered from a review-producing company): from $5 to $15. Price of a negative book review: unmentioned. Number of reviews one paid reviewer writes per week: 70. Price charged to author/publisher by a journal specializing in reviews to publish a review: $425. Estimated number of fake Internet reviews (i.e., reviews commissioned for money or in order to promote or demote a product): one-third of all reviews (estimate given by Bing Liu, a data-mining expert at the University of Illinois-Chicago). Source: David Streitfeld, “The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy,” New York Times (Business), 25 August 2012. Traveling by plane in Russia Ranking of Russia among the most dangerous countries for traveling by plane: 1 (second place is occupied by the Democratic Republic of Congo). Number of people that died in plane crashes in Russia in 2011: 140. Source: Denis Petrov, “Twenty Years After the Fall,” Chronicles: Magazine of American Culture, October 2012, 41. Military draftee problems in Russia Shortfall in last year’s (October 1, 2011-December 31, 2011) fall military draft: 30 percent. The official target for the 2012 fall draft: 140,140 or around 15,000 lower than the spring draft (155,570). Official Russian estimate of the number of persons serving in the Russian military: one million. The real number: around 700,000. Percentage of young Russians medically unfit for military service, according to Olga Kovtun, member of the Union of Pediatricians: 60 percent. Percentage of teenage boys and girls that have reproductive illnesses: 46 percent and 65 percent, respectively. Source: Russian Defense Minister Anatolii Serdyukov, in an interview with Itogi on 15 October 2012, as reported by Roger McDermott, “Serdyukov Confirms Long-Term Dependence on Dwindling Military Conscription,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol. 9, no.193 (23 October 2012). Left-leaning media troubles in Poland Left-leaning periodicals that have recently been declared in danger of closing or have already closed: Przekrój (a general entertainment social weekly founded in 1945); Filmowy Magazyn do czytania; and Happy (two off- springs of Agora, the parent company of Gazeta Wyborcza). Additionally, regional supplements to Gazeta Wyborcza have been cut. Reasons for shrinkage: in the current year Agora’s income fell by 11 percent in comparison to the previous year, while Przekrój readership fell to about 20,000, a figure that does not cover publishing expenses. Source: , 7–9 October 2012 (accessed 9 October 2012). Postcommunism in Belarus Population of Belarus in 1999 and 2009 (according to two censuses): 10,045 million and 9, 489 million (a drop of 5,5 percent). Source: Henryk Borko, “Czy Białorusi grozi kryzys demograficzny?” , 12 September 2011 (accessed 29 October 2012). Marriages and divorces in the second half of 2012 in Belarus: 835 divorces for every 1,000 marriages. Number of abortions between 1990–2010: 2.7 million. Source: Catholic Press Service in Belarus, as reported by and , accessed 30 October 2012. Current estimated rate of population decline in Belarus: -0.362 percent per year. Source: CIA 2012 World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bo.html), accessed 30 October 2012. Profession in which there are job openings worldwide Estimated number of commercial aircraft pilots needed in the forthcoming 20 years worldwide: 450,000. Source: Boeing Company estimate, as reported in NBC Morning News,14 July 2012. 1714 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 New allegations about Smolensk funerals Contents of a written offer made by the Polish Association of Funeral Directors to the Office of Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk after the Smolensk plane crash on 10 April 2012, when all 96 persons on board (includ- ing President Lech Kaczyƒski and his wife Maria Kaczyƒska) perished: the Association offered their services free of charge (coffins and funeral arrangements), in view of so great a tragedy befalling Poland. Follow-up to that offer: no answer was received from the Donald Tusk Office. What the Tusk government did instead: through its organ, Inspektorat Wsparcia Sił Zbrojnych (Inspectorate for Support of the Military Forces), it ordered coffins from a small and unaffiliated funeral home owned by one Piotr Godlewski. Godlewski’s activities in Soviet-occupied Poland (i.e., before 1989) allegedly included being an informer for the secret police. His firm did not have 100 coffins in stock, so they had to be ordered from a manufacturer in Italy. Further disposition of coffins and funeral expenses: Italians sold the coffins without making a profit, and they delivered them gratis. The low price offer included the arrangement of bodies in coffins and sealing the coffins. What happened next: the Polish state treasury paid nearly 300,000 zloties for the coffins to little-known sub- jects; separate bills by undisclosed firms requesting payment for transportation of bodies from the airport and for placing the bodies in coffins were also issued and paid. Yet it was Polish soldiers and not Italians that placed the bodies (or rather, the metal containers sent from Russia, allegedly containing the bodies) in coffins—thus fees were charged for work that was never perfomed. How this scheme was discovered and when: on 10 October 2010, by an investigative reporter from TVN24. Answer of government spokesperson Paweł GraÊ when confronted with questions from journalists: “One had to decide quickly.” Journalist Stanisław Janecki’s comment on Twitter: “The funerals arranged by a funeral home owned by a former spy for the secret police—[this] is an act of vengeance of the civil secret services on the military secret services. Now the latter will try to repay the former.” Source: Antoni Trzmiel, “Kto zarabiał na pogrzebach smoleƒskich?” Rzeczpospolita, 10 October 2012; and . Research projects in humanities that recently won financial support from the Ministry of Higher Education The biggest and smallest grants the Polish Ministry of Higher Education disbursed in support of Polish humani- ties as part of the National Program for Humanities Development in 2012: Studia Semiotyczne (Semiotic Stud- ies) in English translation, 350,000 zloties; Web publication of the Polish Ethnography in English, 166,667 zloties; Web edition of the serial Zapiski Historyczne. PoÊwi∏cone historii Pomorza i Krajów Bałtyckich (Histori- cal notes on the history of Pomerania and the Baltic countries), vol. 75 (2010) and vol. 76 (2011), 154,660 zloties. The three smallest grants went to the Jerzy Grotowski Institute for publication of “selected articles” from a theatrical magazine Didaskalia (8,400 zloties); to provide an English translation of the issue of Pami∏tnik Literacki (a literary journal) dedicated to Czesław Miłosz (20,240 zloties); and for the English translation of one issue of Kwartalnik Filmowy (Film Review), to be placed on (26,860 zloties). Total number of grants: 17, totaling one million zloties. Source: Polish government portal , accessed 14 October 2012. Editor’s comment: In Soviet-occupied Poland topics such as semiotics and ethnography were strongly supported by the authorities—folk art and formalistic studies diverted attention from Polish history and Polish historical culture. In 2012, the Polish Ministry of Higher Education seems to be continuing this policy. Protests against alleged discrimination of Catholic television in Poland Number of people who signed their names on a petition (dispatched to the agency of the Polish government that distributes permits to broadcast within a certain width) protesting discrimination of Catholic TV channel “Trwam”: 2,382,204 as of 14 October 2012. The protesters’ allegation: “Trwam” was unjustly refused a place on the multiplex that is allowed to broadcast throughout Poland; without public debate the authorities passed a bill through the lower house of the Sejm (controlled by the government party) that increases many times the fee for the new stations that want to broad- cast. Those stations that have already received a place on the multiplex are exempted from the new fees, which are sometimes 40 times higher than the old fees. Source: Portal , 14 October 2012; Portal of Polish Catholic Information Agency (ekai.pl), 1 August 2012. January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1715 Overcoming the Burden of History Tadeusz Gajcy made his literary début during the war via underground publishing houses. Polish The Poetry of Tadeusz Gajcy, Czeslaw Miłosz, underground literary life was lively: publications were and Zbigniew Herbert numerous,[2] and literary recitations and discussions were thriving while the participants were also Brigitte Gautier undergoing clandestine military training and for Andrzej Busza committing acts of sabotage against the German occupiers. Born into a working-class family, Gajcy y the end of August 1944, one of the poets manifested early a literary talent that helped him to be about whom I write was dead. A young man admitted to the clandestine university courses and of twenty-two, he was killed while fighting in become the editor of an underground literary magazine. B In July 1943 he published Widma (Spectres), and in the Rising in German-occupied Warsaw. Two volumes July 1944 Grom Powszedni (Mundane thunder),[3] two of his poetry had already been published by weeks before the beginning of the Rising in which he underground presses. His name was Tadeusz Gajcy. was killed. His poetics are elaborate and he creates a The other two poets had become DPs (displaced world of his own, a rare achievement for someone so persons), and were living near Kraków. They did not young. know each other, although the twenty-year-old Zbigniew Herbert had read some poems published by Confronted with historical challenges Gajcy obediently accepted the role designed for him by the already well-known thirty-three-year-old Czesław fate. . . . Miłosz fled away repeatedly but (as Orestes Miłosz. At that moment of their personal history they pursued by the Erynnies) would explain himself were both homeless and suffering, but they were alive. endlessly because he chose the pragmatist way, not The choices they would make in the near future would the glorious one. . . . Herbert fared better because be determined to a significant degree by their he recognized the worth of these poets and other relationship to the past and to the dead man whose historical characters, built up their legend and works, though limited in number, were intense and introduced history into his poetry. original. The choices of the surviving poets would Along with the surge of history into his life and art, affect their later life, career, and mutual relationship. Gajcy depicts a world that is unstable and in perpetual The lives and works of the three poets were influenced movement. The only fixed point in it is the speaker by history in different ways and this interaction offers himself, whom he describes as “strong-willed,” some insight into the makings of literature. “stubborn,” and “in rebellion.” He can feel joy despite My title is taken from the essay “The burden of the circumstances, and he savors life all the more history” by Hayden White, in which he reflects upon intensely as death looms over him. In his poems the the ways of writing history: speaker follows his course undaunted, with an implicit sense of duty to the country and quasi certainty that he [Historians] interpreted the burden of the historian will die. The mood is nonetheless quite serene; nothing as a moral charge to free men from the burden of and no one seem capable of making the speaker change history. They did not see the historian as prescribing his ways—even love, frequently present in the poems. a specific ethical system, valid for all times and places, but they did see him as charged with the Choçbym mówił: pokocham, zostan∏, special task of inducing in men an awareness that choçbym słowa jak trumn∏ zbijał, their present condition was always in part a product ty nie ufaj. I zabierz mi pami∏ç. of specifically human choices, which could (“Portret”) therefore be changed or altered by further human Though I might say: I will love you, I will stay, 1 action in precisely that degree.[ ] though I might nail together words as I would a coffin, I intend to apply these observations to poets and ask don’t trust me and wrest memory away from me. how the three poets perceived history and how it entered (“Portrait”) [4] their works. I will consider Gajcy’s conscious and total offering, Miłosz’s strategies of escape, and Herbert’s acceptance of the inheritance. 1716 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 The speaker belongs to a circle of friends with whom I write as a gravedigger removes earth he shares the same determination. The sense of unity for the motionless bodies, the palm’s despair, and solidarity helps them to resist. The idea of and a little word will rise at times continuity and wholeness is quite strangely but vividly like a cross or a wreath. If it is fated expressed by a vision of their dead bodies, absorbed to last — your hand will open it and fill it with your heart. by the elements and by earth. Apart from the sensuous (“To the man to come”) aspect, a more intellectual one is involved since the This appeal to the next generation and potential earth is the native land to which they literally give their readers is characteristic of Gajcy’s writing, and it forges bodies back in order to protect it. links with past and future. His poetry is free of pathetic The theme of continuity manifests itself in the link and heroic gestures or posturing. He is unpretentious. to “heroic centuries.” The continuity goes further as Just as he envisions his body and his struggle as the poet addresses the people to come, in the manner belonging to the cyclical history of his country, his of Greek epigrams. He asserts that the war will end poetry becomes part of his country’s literature: and that things will revert to normality. He is able to project himself into a future in which he will not Wyschnà êródła bojowych lat. . . . participate. This capacity to abstract oneself from the B∏dà gmachy z melodii wzniosłych horrors of everyday life is surprising and unusual. It stanà miasta płynàce Êpiewem implies a rare ability to put war aside. Gajcy does this i zakrzewià ziemi∏ eposem– by treating it as a vision, as a nightmare, because “žal (“Z dna”)[8] był jak noc”(the sadness was like night).[5] Everything The sources of the fighting years will run dry. . . . happens during the night, by the light of the stars, a Buildings will be erected out of noble melodies traditional symbol of hope. On a referential plane, one towns swimming with songs will surge lining the earth with an epic – might say that it is realistic because some underground (“From the bottom”) activities take place under the cover of darkness. Also, darkness contains the belief that it is only one side of These peaceful tones reveal the young poet’s mastery. life. All these young people have been deprived of He hopes to stay alive in the consciousness of the next something. The narrator states his ambitions ,which generation and serve as a reminder that they need to are not small: enjoy life more fully, while at the same time accepting the responsibility behooving survivors. młodoÊç przywróc∏ i miłoÊç Poet Tadeusz Gajcy died on the battlefield, thus snom niewinnego człowieka (“Przed odejÊciem”) [6] becoming a historical hero and positioning himself in I’ll bring back youth and love the tragic literary mode. However, this mode clashes to the dreams of an innocent man with the world where not the gods but man’s savage (“Before leaving”) nature engineered the tragedy. One could assign him to “witness literature” (témoignage), but its eagerness Against the background of war and occupation, the sole and clumsiness is more easily excused coming from fact of expressing oneself helps exorcise the unbearable an amateur than a man of letters. The issue of placing facts. It seems easier to put things at a distance if you Gajcy in a literary pantheon is complicated by the look at them as if they were only a “landscape,” a Soviet occupation of Poland that brought censorship “painting,” or a “horizon” and not a part of everyday and manipulation of history. Entire blocks of history life. This is exactly how Gajcy proceeds. The and their protagonists disappeared from the history experience of being a writer and therefore giving form books. Gajcy and other writers experienced a second to words, creating a world of his own, empowers Gajcy death at the hands of the political agents determined to with a feeling of joy. erase from memory noncommunist resistance and noncommunist writers. In 1949 the political police Pisz∏ - jak grabarz dół wybiera came to arrest poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczyƒski na ciała bezruch, dłoni rozpacz although, like Gajcy, he had died in the Warsaw Rising i słowo małe staje nieraz five years earlier. The police would go so far as to arrest jak krzyž lub wieniec. JeÊli zostaç people who visited his grave.[9] Needless to say, dane mu b∏dzie— r∏ka twoja research on these poets was not permitted at otworzy je i sercem spełni. (“Do potomnego”)[7] universities, but their legend grew in proportion to the January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1717 efforts of the regime to eradicate it. Maciej (the United States, he accepted the position of lecturer at character played by Zbigniew Cybulski in Ashes and the University of California, Berkeley. At first he diamonds, 1958, by Andrzej Wajda), owes much to the experienced solitude and ostracism from émigré romantic perception of the underground fighters. Gajcy circles. His Nobel Prize in 1980 was attributed by some and his friends’ heroic deaths gave rise to a legend that to political circumstances: 1980 was the year when sometimes overshadowed their poetry. On the other Solidarity, an anticommunist trade union in Gdaƒsk, hand, they were unpalatable to the communist regime was born. He lived a long life and published too many and were published in rare small print runs and when works. His death was marked by controversy: he was published, censored. The untimely death of the denied the prestige of interment in the crypt of the Resistance Poets made way for less-talented writers Wawel castle. who were more pliable in terms of ideology. Miłosz’s writings contain the same breaks and escapes he experienced in personal life. He is hard to The untimely death of the Resistance Poets made classify because he significantly changed his style, way for the less talented writers, more pliable in diction, and genre over the years. Critic Kazimierz terms of ideology. Wyka noted a pathetic tone in Miłosz’s poetry as early as 1937;[13] it remains a defining trait. The elevated Miłosz’s early poems, published in the 1930s, are expression Miłosz seeks in poetry is exemplified by aptly called “catastrophist” since they are full of his love of complex syntax and solemn rhythm that apocalyptic imagery, whereas the poems he wrote endows his poetry with visionary feeling. Critic Andrzej during the war are quite different in tone and express a Zieniewicz described Miłosz’s technique as strange distancing from the events going by. The “psychopoetics.”[14] My own opinion is that the speaker is a spectator much of the time. Such is the author’s strong ego renders him impervious to external case in “Piosenka o koƒcu Êwiata”[10] (Song about the events and makes his avoidance of history possible. end of the world, 1943). The world is falling apart but He is a witness equipped with some intellectual the speaker remains aloof, absorbed by private understanding, but without empathy. The self- concerns. The author can even block the world off, as preservation mantra comes from a wondering in “Âwiat poema naiwne”[11] (The world or a naive awareness poem, 1943). This sequence of quiet stories seen through children’s eyes is characterized by a lack of Îe jednak jestem chociaž wszystko ginie [15] knowledge. The dichotomy between innocence and that I—am, while everything expires [16] experience is evidently modeled on William Blake’s It bears repeating: Miłosz escapes history thanks to his work. The reader is faced with what psychologists call ego. He finds in himself a reason to live as everything “regression,” a way to cope with an unbearable situation else falls apart. He could be called a “diarist poet” since thatdoes not call forth moral judgement. he usually uses a poem to carefully write down his In the poem “W Warszawie” (1945) Miłosz goes every thought and every move. History only appears further. He refuses to put his poetry to the use of the through his solipsist adventures. national tragedy, understood as endless fighting and The correlation to this self-absorption is the perception dying. He sums it up as not wanting to be “płaczka of time in which the present moment is the most žałobna” (a ritual mourner).[12] “W Warszawie” was important experience. Happy memories from the past published in the volume titled Ocalenie (Rescue). It recur regularly but the fully lived instant remains the was one of two volumes published in 1945 by the reference, as stated by the verse beginning with “the official publishing houses in Poland—the depth of war eternal moment” (in “Brzegi Lemanu”—The Leman devastation can be measured by this fact alone. Miłosz lake shores) [17] that Aleksander Fiut appropriately was given the privilege of publication because he did chose as a title for his essay on Miłosz’s poetry.[18] not oppose the communists who seized power with the Life is a series of moments, and as such does not fit help of the Soviet army. His desire to escape the past into any definite particular narrative apart from the suited the strategy of the new regime; he was lured by biographical one. This can best be observed in Traktat promises of a new order. He was sent as a diplomat poetycki (A Treatise on Poetry), (1957) [19] in which first to Washington, DC, and later to Paris. During a Miłosz aims to offer a panorama of Polish poetry. Here trip to Warsaw in 1950 he became so frightened by Miłosz is at his most literal and judgmental. In his desire what he had witnessed that upon returning to Paris he to not leave any doubt about what he thinks, he directs defected. After ten years of waiting for a visa to the 1718 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 the reader toward a single interpretation, closing any Êpimy pod jednym kocem other door: zamykamy oczy poprawiamy usta Dwudziestoletni poeci Warszawy wybieramy suche miejsce Nie chcieli wiedzieç, že CoÊ w tym stuleciu MyÊlom ulega, nie Dawidom z procà.[20] i zakopujemy nie za gł∏boko The twenty-year-old poets of Warsaw/Did not want to nie za p ytko[23] know/that something in this century/Submits to thought, ł not to Davids with their slings.[21] the dead are gentle to us we carry them on our shoulders Miłosz suggests that one should not engage in a fight sleep under the same blanket whose outcome is uncertain at best. However, the close their eyes author was apparently afraid of a straightforward adjust their lips statement on this topic since he added to the poem a pick a dry spot prose commentary longer than the poem itself and not and bury them always illuminating. The speaker takes a further step in “Ballada” (Ballad, not too deep 1958)[22] in which he accuses Gajcy of having fought not too shallow[24] for the wrong cause and wasting his life and his death. Herbert quickly found his own voice characterized The accusatory tone and the almost morbid delight in by a refined minimalist style and a concern for man in the minute evocation of the different aspects of death history. Echoes of Gajcy appear in his choice of words are surprising. Nonetheless, Gajcy’s poems are not and metaphors. Herbert’s first volume, Struna Êwiatła subject to attack in“Ballada.” (Chord of Light, 1956),[25] speaks of war and death In 1958 Miłosz met in Paris Zbigniew Herbert whose under the guise of ancien Greek mythology. An essay perception of time, history, and the significance of published posthumously,“The Latin lesson”[26] Gajcy was very different. Herbert made a late debut provides evidence of Herbert’s extensive classical and only thanks to the cultural “thaw” of 1956. He had education. He was fascinated by the writings and heroic just been allowed to visit France and was enthralled deaths of the young Resistance poets. It is as if he by the beauty of Paris and its wealth of art. The other decided that Gajcy’s poem “To the man to come”[27] valuable aspect of his stay was that he could meet the was addressed to him. Polish émigré personalities. For Herbert, solidarity with the past became vital in the face of war and occupation, followed by imposition This is how Herbert sees the role of different of a totalitarian system. Herbert accepts the legacy and people in the resistance process: those who fight and takes on the burden of fighting for freedom in life and die; and those intent on surviving, who are also art. To a large extent, his writing arises from a sense of useful because they manage to get through duty to the dead. This is best expressed in the essay everything and carry on with life. “Duszyczka” (Little soul, 1973),[28] where the narrator articulates his need to experience as much as possible Miłosz and Herbert experienced roughly the same and write about it. His “survivor complex” turned into horrors during the war with the exception of the Soviet a “giving back” complex. The essay is dedicated to his occupation that Herbert experienced in Lwów (Lviv) friend Zdzisław Najder, a Joseph Conrad scholar: the from 1939 to 1941, after the partition of Poland by the duty imperative is strong in all of Conrad’s characters. allied German and Soviet troops in September 1939. In 1946 Maria Dàbrowska used it to defend the soldiers In June 1941 Germans broke their pact with the Soviets of the Warsaw Rising against criticism from a and invaded the USSR (or rather, those Polish territories communist journalist who denied them “historical that were under Soviet occupation). Miłosz and Herbert relevance.”[29] In the 2000s Najder reentered the reacted very differently to these events. Herbert refused intertextual chain by presenting two papers on Herbert’s to forget either the past or the dead. The memory is deep respect for the poets who fell in battle.[30] made tangible as in the poem“Our fear:” Herbert’s loyalty is best expressed in the two lines of umarli sà dla nas łagodni his famous poem of 1974, “Przesłanie Pana Cogito” niesiemy ich na plecach (The Envoy of Mr Cogito): January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1719 ocalałeÊ nie po to aby žyç regardless of how hard I could try to kick it off I masz mało czasu trzeba daç Êwiadectwo [31] won’t free myself from it. [36] you were saved not in order to live Although Herbert welcomed every opportunity to travel you have little time you must give testimony abroad and stay for longer periods in France, Austria, Germany, and the United States, he refused to leave The “survivor complex ” interpretation was suggested his country. Herbert’s ties to the past, as Gajcy’s, are by Herbert himself when he quoted these lines in bonds to people, to a community. His vision of history, 1998.[32] He felt a strong affinity with Gajcy but however, is marked by detachment and aloofness distanced himself from Miłosz.[33] At the same time, resulting in irony. their personal relationship was amicable and Miłosz The fact that Herbert worked a long time on his poems was Herbert’s first translator into English. (some of them took years to complete) helped him The differences between the two poets become obtain the necessary distance to depict events and gain obvious in “Tren Fortinbrasa” (The Elegy of control over expression. The absence of big words helps Fortinbras)[34] that Herbert dedicated to Miłosz on 16 carry the idea of truth. The levelheadedness is achieved July 1958. The dedication always plays an important by means of carefully assembled words and structures. role in Herbert’s semiotics. The poem is a monologue The simplicity enhances the metaphors, oxymorons, of the Norwegian prince who confronts the dead and metonymies. The limited choice of words, referring Hamlet. The scene takes place after the action of to essential objects and qualities, makes for an Shakespeare’s play comes to an end. Herbert often integrated poetic world. Like George Herbert before presents his characters and their doubts after the critical him, Zbigniew Herbert could easily provide various moment highlighted by history or a work of art. The illustrations to William Empson‘s Seven types of critics usually state that Herbert’s sympathy lies with ambiguity.[37] Hamlet and that Fortinbras is a despot in the making; I Herbert uses myth as a means of making his country’s see it differetntly. The theme of separation that lies at tragedy understandable. His poems “catch” the hero in the heart of the poem makes me see Miłosz in Hamlet the aftermath of his defining deed and show him who was unable to live in the “prison” of Denmark returning to being an ordinary man; heroic behaviour (read: communist Poland). Fortinbras stands for thus becomes almost an episode in normality. Herbert‘s Herbert, determined to confront the ugly things of life, mythical protagonists are not presented as semidivine trying to improve them and by using symbols win the figures but as very human in their reactions. Herbert town. My interpretation is meant to show that Herbert’s also depicts a contemporary average man whose cares use of ambiguity allows different readings and that his and troubles are comprehensible to us, but who in a world is not a Manichean one: irony and polysemous certain way reflects his mythical counterpart. This meanings are its essential traits. poetic strategy invests myth with intense reality. Such “The Elegy of Fortinbras” is part of a central quartet is the case of the Minotaur: of poems in Studium przedmiotu (Study of the Object, 1961), along with ‘The Return of the Proconsul,” Wyczerpawszy wszystkie Êrodki król Minos “Naked town,” and “Reflections on the problem of postanowił pozbyç si∏ zakały rodu. Sprowadził the nation.”[35] These poems obviously reflect (takže z Grecji, która słyn∏ła ze zdolnych ludzi) discussions the two men had in Paris. Here the speaker zr∏cznego morderc∏ Tezeusza. I Tezeusz zabił asserts his refusal to emigrate, not so much for artistic Minotaura. W tym punkcie mit i historia sà ze sobà reasons (Miłosz was afraid of losing his Polish zgodne. [38] audience) but for moral ones (not distancing oneself Having exhausted all his resources, King Minos from one’s nation in need). This last claim conveys resolved to get rid of this disgrace to the royal line. something instinctive, due to the fact of having been He brought in (again from Greece, which was born in a certain place. According to Herbert’s moral known for its able men) the ace assassin Theseus. code one takes responsibility even for situations one And Theseus killed the Minotaur. On this point did not choose because they concern one’s own people: myth and history agree.[39]

What do I think about Poland? The same as you do Here myth becomes the privileged narrative vehicle of because I have no blood link (even less than you history, simple and dramatic enough to channel the flow do) to the country but this Erde (ohne Blut) is mine, of history into an intelligible tale. The generality of just like an illness or a venereal disease, and myth helps tell the story not only of the underground 1720 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 soldiers of the Second World War, but of every of language in poetry. This poem has been the most resistance movement: commented on of Herbert’s poems. It is equivocal, though; it deals with an uneasy balance between feeling, ci którzy toczà wózki po êle brukowanym obligation, and a sense of humility. przedmieÊciu Herbert’s poetic speakers display a wide range of i uciekajà z požaru z butlà barszczu którzy wracajà na ruiny nie po to by wołaç attitudes regarding their place in history, from the zmarłych vanquished who retired from the current of events: ale aby odnaleêç rur∏ želaznego piecyka Ci którzy przegrali taƒczà z dzwonkami u nóg głodzeni– kochajàcy žycie w kajdanach Êmiesznych strojów w piórach bici w twarz– kochajàcy žycie. . . . zdechłego orła . . . . naród trwa oddali histori∏ i weszli w lenistwo gablotek i wracajàc z pełnymi workami ze szlaków ucieczki ležà w grobowcu pod szkłem obok wiernych wznosi łuk triumfalny kamieni [42] dla pi∏knych umarłych[40] Those who lost dance with bells at their legs those who draw their carts through badly paved in fetters of comic costumes in the feathers of a suburbs croaked eagle . . . . and flee from fires with a bottle of borsch they abandoned history and entered the laziness of who return to the ruins not to claim the dead a display-case but to recover the pipe of an iron stove they lie in a glass tomb next to faithful stones [43] starved—loving life beaten on the face—loving life . . . . to those engulfed in a totalitarian system: the nation endures and returning with full sacks from its routes of rozsàdni mówià retreat že možna współžyç builds triumphant arches z potworem for the beautiful dead [41] naležy tylko unikaç This poem exemplifies the way Herbert sees “the gwałtownych ruchów dialectics of life,” or the role of different people in the gwałtownej mowy . . . . resistance process: those who fight and die and those Pan Cogito jednak intent on surviving who are also useful because they nie lubi žycia na niby manage to get through everything and carry on with chciałby walczyç life. The “substance” is made up of both heroes and z potworem common people. na ubitej ziemi[44] One of the main appeals of Herbert’s poetic characters reasonable people say is that they are endowed with the power of choice. we can live together Among those who ponder what they ought to do we with the monster find the very popular Mr. Cogito. The volume of poems bearing this title appeared in 1974. The characters in we only have to avoid sudden movements the poems are related to one another as family, friends, sudden speech . . . . fighting comrades, or people from the past. Part of the Mr Cogito however fascination that Herbert’s poetry produces in his does not want a life of make-believe audience can be attributed to the existence of a community in his poems, the community that embraces he would like to fight the readers themselves. The speaker shares his with the monster on firm ground [45] understatements with the reader. Owing to this, Herbert enjoyed a cult status with several generations of readers As we know from contemporary Polish history, in Poland. The banner of this cult has been “The Envoy Herbert’s readers opted for the second solution. The of Mr Cogito,” a poem ending with a simple exhortation fight was long and dreary, especially since the martial “Be faithful Go.” It became a rallying cry for law introduced in December 1981 resulted in ten more communism‘s opponents in the 1970s and ’80s. It is a years of regression in social development and economy. rare example of the use of the “performative” function January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1721 On the other hand, a political situation inspired Report underground printing and resistance. In doing this, they from a besieged city (1982). Herbert’s besieged city also endowed Herbert’s epic with the new substance resembles ancient Troy, the Albi of the French Cathars, of their lives and actions. Herbert’s answer to Hayden Leyden in 1574, and Acropolis. For Polish readers it White’s question would be to treat history as an epic was a metaphor of the situation in Poland. The speaker and try to engrave one’s people’s deeds on the general is a chronicler of the siege. One of the purposes of the history of mankind. chronicle is to preserve the city’s glory and its resistance against the conquerors who want to erase the Wszystkie linie zagł∏biajà si∏ w dolinie dłoni civilization of the vanquished and make them forget w małej jamie gdzie bije êródełko losu oto linia žycia patrzcie przebiega jak strzała their culture. Similarly, a poet’s task is to keep alive a widnokràg pi∏ciu palców rozjaÊniony potokiem language and a memory. “The report of a besieged city” który rwie naprzód obalajàc przeszkody has features of an epic; it was published thirty years i nie ma nic pi∏kniejszego nic pot∏žniejszego ago but, as Krzysztof Biedrzycki aptly pointed out, it niž to dàženie naprzód [47] could be applied to the siege of Sarajevo that took place in 1992–95.[46] In Herbert’s poems, places function All the lines descend into the valley of the palm into a hollow where bubbles a small spring of fate as signposts of history. here is the life line look it races like an arrow All these traits converge to enhance the epic quality the horizon of five fingers brightened by its stream of the poem, the narrative of a nation founded on a which surges for overthrowing obstacles common struggle for liberty. There is no description and nothing is more beautiful more powerful of righteous victory since Herbert’s epic is designed to than this striving forward [48] convey a recurring message of hope to fighting people. Symbolic victory is achieved through the strength of Herbert has the ability to translate the brutal course individuals determined to resist, whatever the odds. At of history into an epic tale of human struggle, while at the same time, Herbert’s poems partake of universal the same time interpreting the complexities of life in a imagery: they portray stone, sand, forest, images that simple way. The discipline of hermeneutics is invite symbolic interpretation. This is why these poems symbolically associated with the god Hermes, an expert find resonance among various peoples and countries. at deciphering riddles and assisting successive steps They portray a struggling humanity, trapped in a situation it cannot control and fighting its way out of of initiation, which made him become patron of the it. Herbert’s poems that referred to the Polish situation Eleusinian mysteries in ancient Greece. Herbert have achieved universal significance. mentions several times that he chose Hermes as a patron Epic literature creates an order and even introduces because he was the god of travelers. Hermes was also a teleology in the world as the efforts and the struggles a trickster, and he guided the souls of the dead.[49] In of the people result in victory and/or in mastering The Greek Myths Robert Graves states that Hermes was history. From the magma rises a story that gives also the patron of poets until Apollo took that role away meaning to facts that could have remained unrelated, but in order for epic literature to become truly epic a from him.[50] Herbert certainly knew about all these community has to accept it, recognize itself in it, and attributes when he chose this god as an ostensible choose it among other possible narratives. This clearly patron. It is quite typical of his artistry to not display happened with Herbert’s works. From the 1960s to the his learning, to leave some things untold and make 1990s some readers chose the classical and mythical discovery possible for the readers. The fact that Hermes interpretation, some chose the free will and is a guide to souls is particularly germane. Herbert took philosophical interpretation, but all were certain that upon himself the role of a “guide” to the souls of the the tale of an unremitting struggle for freedom was theirs. It is a rare and ironic instance of a society refining its dead young poets, trying to speak for them and to keep hermeneutic skills thanks partly to the activity of censors. their memory alive. The intensity and urgency of living, The new wave of the Polish opposition in the 1980s, the sensuousness of experience and a final peace are consisting largely of thirty-year-olds, rediscovered the things that Herbert clearly remembered from Gajcy’s memory of the insurgents of the Second World War poetry. and identified with them. They demanded access to The volume Epilogue to the Tempest was published the past and to truth about it and engaged in in 1998, a few months before the poet’s death, without 1722 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 the eponymous poem that Herbert did not have enough [5] Gajcy, op. cit., 185. time to complete. It clearly alludes to Shakespeare’s [6] Ibid., p. 170. play and Giorgione’s painting, both called The Tempest. [7] Ibid., p. 209. The unfinished poem (published posthumously[51]) is [8] Ibid., p. 190. [9] Wiesław Budzyƒski, see fn. 2 a conversation between Prospero and Caliban after the [10] Czesław Miłosz, Poezje (Paris: Institut Littéraire, 1984), end of the play when they find themselves alone on p. 102. the island. The device is similar to the one in “Elegy of [11] Ibid., pp. 92–101. Fortinbras.” The magician represents mind and control, [12] Ibid., pp. 122–23. whereas Caliban is a symbol of instinct and strength. [13] Kazimierz Wyka, “Płomieƒ i marmur,” Rzecz Wyobraêni The irony of leaving this poem unfinished, knowing (Warsaw: PIW, 1977), p. 262. that readers would look for closure, may have been [14] Andrzej Zieniewicz, “Autoryzowanie historii. inspired by Hermes “the trickster,” or perhaps was just DoÊwiadczenie i zapis w drugiej połowie XX wieku,” a literary way for Herbert to leave his own artistic TeraêniejszoÊç i pami∏ç przeszłoÊci, edited by H. Gosk i A. testament open. Zieniewicz (Warsaw: Elipsa, 2006), p. 107. In conclusion, confronted with historical challenges [15] Miłosz, “PieÊn obywatela,” Poezje, p. 103. Gajcy obediently accepted the role designed for him [16] Miłosz, New and Collected Poems (1931–2001), by fate, along with the death scheme, just as the hero translated by John and Bogdana Carpenter (New York: Ecco of a Greek tragedy would. Miłosz fled repeatedly but Press, 2001). (as Orestes is pursued by the Erynnies) would explain [17] Miłosz, Wiersze, vol. 2 (Kraków: Znak, 2002), p. 163. himself endlessly because he chose the pragmatist way, [18] Aleksander Fiut, The Eternal Moment: The Poetry of not the glorious one. In so doing he would try to deny Czesław Miłosz, translated by Theodosia S. Robertson the value of the sacrifices made by poets such as Gajcy. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). Herbert fared better because he recognized the worth [19] Miłosz, Wiersze, vol. 2, pp. 167–251. of these poets and other historical characters, built up [20] Ibid., 216. their legend and introduced history into his poetry.Δ [21] Miłosz, New And Collected Poems, p. 130. This paper is based on a lecture given at Oxford University in July 2011. [22] Król Popiel i inne wiersze, in Wiersze, 298. [23] “Nasz strach,” Studium przedmiotu, in Zbigniew NOTES Herbert, Wiersze zebrane (Kraków: Wyd. A5, 2008), p. 261. [1] Hayden White, “The Burden of History,” Tropics of [24] “Our fear,” translated by C. Miłosz and P. Dale Scott, Discourse, Essays on Cultural Criticism (Baltimore and Study of the object, in Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 49. Poems. 1956–1998 (New York: Ecco, 2006), p. 177. [2] Wiesław Budzyƒski, “Wst∏p” in Krzysztof Kamil [25] Zbigniew Herbert, Struna swiatła (Warsaw: Czytelnik, Baczyƒski, Kiedy si∏ miłoÊç Êmiercià stała... (Warsaw: 1956). Interlibro, 1993), p. 6. [26] “Lekcja łaciny,” Labirynt nad morzem (Warsaw: [2] According to Józef Garliƒski, 1,400 underground Fundacja Zeszytów Literackich, 2000), 165–97. English periodicals were published during war period. Polska w translation: “The Latin Lesson,” Labyrinth on the sea, in drugiej wojnie Êwiatowej (London: Odnowa, 1982), p. 238. Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Prose (1948–1998), This is confirmed by Andrzej Paczkowskiwho speaks of translated by Alyssa Valles (New York: Ecco, 2009). 1,500 titles (Pół wieku dziejów Polski, Warsaw: PWN, 2005), [27] “Do potomnego” in Tadeusz Gajcy, op. cit., 209. p. 61. [28] Labirynt nad morzem, op. cit., 83–91. [3] Widma was published under the pen name of Karol [29] Maria Dàbrowska, “Conradowskie poj∏cie wiernoÊci,” Topornicki. See Tadeusz Gajcy, Wybór Poezji—Misterium (The Conradian notion of fidelity) in Warszawa, 1946/1, in niedzielne, edited by Stanisław BereÊ (Wrocław: Zakład response to Jan Kott, “O laickim tragizmie” (On secular Narodowy im. Ossoliƒskich, 1992). tragic) in TwórczoÊç, 1945/2. [4] Tadeusz Gajcy, Grom Powszedni, in Wybór Poezji - [30] Zdzisław Najder, “Pierwsze wspomnienie” and “La Misterium niedzielne, p. 160. Translation by B. G. Professor poésie comme devoir” (Poetry as duty), in En hommage a Bogdana Carpenter was kind enough to suggest Zbigniew Herbert, Les Nouveaux Cahiers Franco-Polonais, improvements to the translation. 2005/5, edited by Danuta Knysz-Tomaszewska, Brigitte January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1723 Gautier, and Anna Ciesielska (Warsaw-Paris, Centre de A Strange Poet Civilisation Polonaise de l’université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris A Commentary on Cyprian Norwid’s Verse IV), 2005), pp. 113–23. Published in Polish as “Poezja jako obowiàzek” in Portret z poczàtku wieku, edited by W. Lig∏za (Lublin: Gaudium, 2005). Agata Brajerska-Mazur [31]“Przeslanie Pana Cogito,” in Herbert, Wiersze Zebrane, 439. here lived in Paris. . . a Polish writer little known in his own country, an artist known even less, a strange [32]“Słowo na wieczorze poetyckim w Teatrze poet, a hieroglyph-stylist, whose every poem has to Narodowym,” in Herbert, W∏zeł gordyjski i inne pisma T be read syllable by syllable ten times over. . . His ideas, rozproszone, 1948–1998, edited by Paweł Kàdziela despite his profound learning and detailed familiarity with (Warsaw: Biblioteka Wi∏zi, 2001), 94-100. the achievements of contemporary knowledge, move in a [33] Zbigniew Herbert– Czesław Miłosz, Korespondencja diametrically opposite direction to that of modern (Warsaw: Zeszyty Literackie, 2006). philosophical current. But he was not a dilettante, and certainly not a visionary, a mystic, or a lunatic. . . He knew [34] Wiersze zebrane, 271. how to uncover in every thing such a relation of it to other [35] “Powrót prokonsula,” 269; “Miasto nagie,” 273; things that it would become so original as to appear almost “Rozwažania o problemie narodu,” 274. English translation unrecognizable. He carried his soul around with him as if it by Miłosz and P. D. Scott, “The return of the proconsul,” were some kind of a numismatic rarity, unknown to anyone, 184 and “Naked town,” 188. English translation by A. Valles, unwanted, useless. . . . He resembled a stone salvaged from “Reflections,” 189. some marvelous edifice, which somewhere, sometime had [36] Zbigniew Herbert and Czesław Miłosz, Korespondencja, burnt down completely.[1] op. cit., 93. Translated into English by B. G. Józef Tokarzewicz wrote these words about Cyprian [37] William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (London: Kamil Norwid in an obituary notice. Tokarzewicz Chatto and Windus, 1930). described a strange poet: unknown, obscure, moving [38] Herbert, Wiersze zebrane, 413. in an opposite direction to fashionable trends in art and [39] Herbert, Collected Poems, translated by Alissa Valles, philosophy. Such a description was appropriate because 308. in the eyes of his contemporaries Norwid was indeed [40] “Substancja,” Wiersze zebrane, 160. strange, obscure, ill-understood, and rejected. [41] “The Substance,” translated by John and Bogdana This exceptional Romantic poet, novelist, playwright, Carpenter, Selected Poems (Oxford Univ. Press, 1977), 27. sculptor, painter, engraver, and draughtsman was born [42] “Ci którzy przegrali,” Wiersze zebranie, 400. in 1821. As an orphan he was raised by his grandmother [43] “Those Who Lost,” Mr. Cogito, translated by John and Hilaria Zdziechowska, née Sobieska.[2] Norwid spent Bogdana Carpenter (Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), 27. his youth studying painting but in 1840 he made his [44] “Potwór Pana Cogito,” Wiersze zebrane, 487. debut as a poet on the pages of a Warsaw newspaper. [45] “The Monster of Mr Cogito,” Report from the Besieged As a result, he enjoyed a brief spell of fame and City and Other Poems, translated by John and Bogdana recognition. It soon ended in rejection and bitterness Carpenter (Oxford Univ. Press, 1987), 40–41. because it became clear that his works had little to do [46] Krzysztof Biedrzycki, Poezja i pami∏ç - o trzech with the poetry of the second generation of the Polish poematach Czesława Miłosza, Zbigniewa Herberta i Adama Romantics, and his views did not fit the programs of Zagajewskiego (Kraków: Wyd. Uniw. Jagielloƒskiego, emigration political parties,[3] nor did they have much 2008), p. 201. in common with the manifestoes of Polish Positivism. [47] “Wróženie,” Wiersze zebrane, 67. They were too difficult, too precursory to be understood by the readers of that time. As one of the poet’s critics [48]“Fortune-telling,” translated by C. Miłosz and P. Dale stated, he was a “genius not appreciated enough. . . Scott, Collected Poems, 50. born one hundred years too soon.”[4] Norwid died in [49] A. S. Byatt, On Histories and Stories (Cambridge, MA: oblivion in France, in the St. Casimir Shelter for Harvard Univ. Press, 2002), p. 145. impoverished Polish war veterans and orphans run by [50] Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (NY: Viking, 2011). Polish nuns. He was first buried at Ivry, then moved [51] First in Zeszyty Literackie, 2000/2, 92–93, then in into a mass grave at the Polish cemetery in Utwory rozproszone, edited by Ryszard Krynicki (Kraków: Montmorency. The fluctuation of critics’ attitudes A5, no year given, pp. 290–92). toward Norwid’s poetry can be best exemplified by a 1724 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 selection of their comments, given in chronological then can one introduce the work of a poet who is order:[5] simultaneously grounded in nineteenth-century traditions “Prose-writer, critic, poet, sculptor, painter, he daily and who at the same time shatters them? . . . One should demonstrates immense fruitfulness and creativity” (Przeglàd reveal Norwid’s originality. But how to demonstrate it Poznaƒski, 1848). without seeming ridiculous and eccentric? . . . The answer . “A mannered obscurity of thought, imagery and language” . . must be that he cannot appear as a second rate Hopkins, (Gazeta Polska, 1849). Browning, Clough; or as an imitation of Emily Dickinson, “It is very difficult to grasp these poems, logically tie the nor as just another average craftsman of the Victorian era. author’s thoughts and say what he is after” (Czas, 1851). What a challenge! Who will cope with it?[10] “Examples of studied nothingness, in which quirks of Norwid has been compared to Pre-Raphaelites, to T. thought are matched by quirks of language and unbelievable S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and the French Symbolists. G. M. arrogance competes with glaring ignorance” (WiadomoÊci Hyde has written of him as follows: Polskie, 1857). “Wagner’s Tannhaüser. . . has been called the music of the For the English reader, he is like the French Symbolists, future, just as our people call Norwid the poet of the future, and shares Baudelaire’s fascination with paradox and the and indeed it is a Norwidian work: Hegelian philosophy in dialectic. . . . His almost paranoid view of language as a music” (Andrzej Koêmian, 1861). dense system of “correspondences” from which we are “Extremely individualistic and precisely because of this necessarily excluded (but by which we are judged) again individualism there is no way he can be well understood by echoes Baudelaire and Mallarmé. . . . He is simultaneously the masses” (Echo, 1876). a political poet steeped in the history of a specific moment, “Cyprian Norwid is dead. So? . . Cyprian’s truly beautiful and one of those powerful practitioners of the genre of poems could make up a volume that would prove its weight “silence” (or a hermeticism bordering on silence) that the even alongside the best European talents, but will there be “new” Poland . . . will have to reassess.[11] anyone to offer him this posthumous favor? ” (Teofil In fact, apart from similarities to the mentioned Lenartowicz, 1883) writers, Norwid is so unique and so idiosyncratic that “Norwid’s works demand not just to be read, but to be closely he should remain himself in translations: obscure, read” (Wiktor Gomulicki, 1902). eccentric, a bit of a visionary but at the same time very ‘Today, even after publication of just a handful of unknown works, his name sounds. . . just as fully. . . as the names of down to earth; on the one hand deeply rooted in our three great Romantics” (Zenon Przesmycki, 1904). tradition but on the other establishing new trends in poetry. The challenge is enormous, and yet there have Rejected during his lifetime, absent from Polish culture been a few risk takers who tried to rise to it.[12] of the nineteenth century, Norwid was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century by Zenon Danuta Borchardt and Patrick Corness recently have Przesmycki (aka Miriam), who saved the poet’s joined the rare group of Norwid’s translators.[13] I manuscripts from oblivion and systematically cannot objectively estimate their work since I have published Norwid’s texts in his periodical Chimera collaborated with both of them. For Danuta Borchardt (1901–1907). Przesmycki also put together collected I provided “Ten Commandments for the Translation editions of the writer’s works. His efforts were of the Works of Cyprian Norwid”[14] devised to continued by Professors Stanisław Pigoƒ and Wacław maintain the highest possible fidelity toward his poems. Borowy, and after the Secon d World War by Juliusz These commandments were based on my knowledge Wiktor Gomulicki, Józef Fert, and Stefan Sawicki. of previous translators’ pitfalls and difficulties encountered while translating Norwid’s texts.[15] Today Norwid’s output remains the focus of research Patric Corness tried to preserve the distinctive features of many exceptional literary theorists[6] and academic of two of Norwid’s poems: Fatum (“Fate”) and W institutions.[7] A scholarly journal is dedicated to Weronie (“In Verona”) which I discuss in On English Norwid’s opus.[8] Because of his originality he is one Translations of Norwid’s Works.[16] These features of the most difficult poets to translate, yet some of his were named in order to help critics evaluate whether works have been translated into many languages, existing translations corresponded to the identity of the especially into English.[9] The difficulty of anglicizing original texts. Often the features were presented in the his poetry was best grasped by one of Norwid’s most form of points created with the katena method.[17] prominent translators, Adam Czerniawski, who wrote Katena, meaning “pure” in Greek, compiles and the following: compares the most important interpretations of a source How can a translator verify Norwid’s genius? Norwid is a text in order to determine its most significant features nineteenth-century poet as well as a precursory author. How that should be preserved in translation. It seems to be January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1725 the most suitable method so far as the search for repeating comparisons that contrast two opposing distinctive features of the original are concerned. It protagonists in the poem. sums up the general knowledge of all interpreters of I am not sure whether “human” really means the the text, giving the critic broad insights into the same as “człowiek” (man) in Norwid’s texts. In analyzed poem and safeguarding him from translation one cannot pay too much attention to this subjectivism. Its usefulness has been demonstrated by Polish word, so very important in the poet’s Patrick Corness, a translator who used the points vocabulary,[18] that denotes in the context of his works created with the help of katena in order to actually an ordinary mortal but at the same time someone produce a translation and not just assess existing unusual: a priest, although bezwiedny (unaware) and translations. While working on his translation of Fatum niedojrzały (immature).[19] As Stefan Sawicki rightly he tried to comply with the following significant points pointed out, in Norwid’s works man is identified on the basis of the compiled and compared widely perceived, deeply understood, portrayed in various interpretations of the original: dimensions, aspirations, and entanglements. Most concisely. 1. The “multi-interpretativeness” of the lyric, or . . is Norwid’s comprehension of man put in the formula of the effect of numerous associations and the story “Bransoletka” (The Bracelet): he is “earthly every references to diverse literary and philosophical minute, and eternal always”—doczesny jest co chwila, a currents, such as in “gaining from one’s foe” wieczny zawsze. Human time. . . is continuous, it has in fact or “benefiting from one’s misery.” no fundamental caesura. Man is everlasting, inscribed into 2. The terseness of the lyric that describes only eternity since the beginning. . . . Earthliness also means limitation. Man is limited in his actions and thinking, despite one dramatic event: the fight between the man victorious achievements and great discoveries. Limited by and his fate. everything that surrounds him, and then by himself. And at 3. The situation of an “eye fight,” shown by the same time he has a part in God’s eternal intelligence, he means of a proper word selection, which leads is its trace, someone nearly angelically elevated. Pył marny to the conclusion that misery disappears when i rzecz Boža—“wretched dust and a thing of God”—is again it is confronted by and used by its victim. an expression of Norwid’s that indicates the need for 4. Semantic, phonetic and syntactic contrast balancing the two points of reference, which balance allows between two parts of the lyric, perceivable him to maintain the humanity characteristic of us: a humble, through the presence of fricative and affricate thus true, awareness of ourselves. “Earthly” also means consonants, inversion, and “wild” designations participation in everything earthly: in the life of a family, society, nation, nature. In the creation of culture. In wisely in the first stanza, and the lack of them in the subduing the earth. In creating today with faithful memory second. of the past and responsibility for tomorrow. In acting on 5. Duality of time that simultaneously expresses the basis of one’s own decisions, yet subject to eternity in the concrete and the universal situation. estimates and judgments, dependent on it in one‘s 6. Typography of the poem that introduces the conscience. Norwid’s earthliness in human life is also full range of emotions inherent in its plot: weakness, proclivity to err and slip into, or immerse in sin astonishment, tension, anticipation, reflection, “every minute”—co chwila. But the committed evil deed, fear and relief; stressing the significance of sometimes humiliating or terrifying, can also be a realization words marked in the text by spaced-out print. of weakness, a beginning of inner transformation. Divine eternity is—in the words of St. Paul, the Poet’s favorite—a I believe that Patrick Corness’s translation is not only source of “new power made perfect in weakness”—siły, faithful to the original, but also identifies itself as an która si∏ w słaboÊci doskonali, which awakens and nurses artistic entity. He conveys in depth all of the six features awareness.[20] that comprise the specificity of Norwid’s Fatum. I am not entirely sure whether “human” carries the However, there are some minor deficiencies that could same connotations as Norwidian “człowiek,” and be eliminated in order to make his translation even more whether this English word is equally general and faithful. universal as Norwid’s use of the Polish term. In the original Polish “Jak” begins a comparison No change of subject in the second stanza is because it compares “Nieszcz∏Êcie” (Anguish) to a acceptable in translation, although in Norwid’s poem wild beast, so its best equivalent in English would be such a change means that the attacked man took the “like,” not “such.” In the second stanza Norwid again initiative and began to defend himself. In Patrick uses a comparison, this time comparing “a man” to Corness’s translation “anguish” is always the “an artist.” It may be worth maintaining the pattern of grammatical agent, and thus the focus”centers mainly 1726 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 on it. On the other hand, the translator lexically (casts a star down from on high) and whether this act reinforces the contrast between the two stanzas to such takes place at night or in daytime. a degree that it compensates for the loss of their original The katenas designed for translation critics and not phonetical and syntactical differences. for translators themselves have not taken such subtleties The choice of vocabulary (anguish, fateful, transfix, into account; they can only measure fidelity to the text. discern, core) is excellent, as well as the structure of Nor do they assess the artistic value of the translation. the translation (rhymes and rhythm, laconism) and its As Patric Corness’s collaborator, I can only be satisfied graphic layout. The only omission that spoils it is the that the katena method proved useful for translation as lack of the question mark, which in Norwid’s poetry far as faithfulness to the original is concerned. Δ was placed in unusual positions and was always NOTES significant.[21] It may be worth trying to put a question [1] Tokarzewicz (1884), translated by Bogdan Czaykowski mark after “What gain” in English. In Polish the placing in “The Poet as a Christian Socrates: Introduction to C. K. of this question mark is also unusual, and it thus Norwid,” Selected Poems, translated by Adam Czerniawski provokes reflection on the meaning of the text and (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2011), p. 7. reading it more attentively. Apart from these slight [2] Norwid was very proud of his noble origin; despite doubts concerning Patrick Corness’s translation of impoverishment, he often boasted of his close relations to Fatum I have no other reservations. I can only praise the family of King John III Sobieski. his translation for its faithfulness to the original. [3] Because of censorship and the invaders’ oppression The second translation is even closer to the source (Poland was then under colonial partition), many Polish text. The translator followed the directions which I gave intellectuals, Norwid among them, lived and worked abroad, particularly in France where in the hope of regaining when analyzing Norwid’s poem “W Weronie” and its independence they created societies and parties. many translations into English by means of the katena [4] This commentary was made by Aleksander Jełowicki in method, taking into account the following: the 1853. Citation from Wybór głosów o twórczoÊci pisarskiej equivocal sense of the poem, which might be Cypriana Norwida (Selection of Commentaries about understood as a Romantic praise of emotions as in Cyprian Norwid’s Writing), selected by J. W. Gomulicki in Mickiewicz’s “RomantycznoÊç”; an attempt to unmask C. Norwid, Pisma Wybrane, vol. 1, Warszawa: PIW, 1968, illusions; confrontation of two truths about reality (the p. 107. Translation from Polish by A. B-M. reader may choose either of them); and reflection on [5] All quotations are taken from A. Czerniawski, The the mystery of the world and human affairs. Burning Forest (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, The double-layered structure of the poem is 1988), pp. 25–27, where the reader may find many more examples of changeable reception of Norwid’s works. All manifested by two opposite perspectives (the houses have been compiled and translated by A. Czerniawski. of Capulets and Montagues seen from two levels; [6] Jan Błoƒski, Wacław Borowy, Józef Fert, Michał confrontation of two different realities (spiritual and Głowiƒski, Juliusz Wiktor Gomulicki, Mieczysław Inglot, material); the regular and symmetrical rhythmic and Mieczysław Jastrun, ZdzisławŁapiƒski, rhyming pattern of the poem (four triplets consisting TadeuszMakowiecki, Jadwiga Puzynina, StefanSawicki, of eleven and eight-syllable verses, rhyming aab aab Irena Sławiƒska, Zofia Stefanowska, Zofia Szmydtowa, ccd ccd); pictorial quality (stillness, colors); contrast ZofiaTrojanowiczowa, Jacek Trznadel, Kazimierz Wyka, of motion and stillness, dynamism and inertness; and ZbigniewZaniewicki, MaciejÎurowski and others. the motifs of tears, ruins, cypress trees, and stones. [7] Zakład Badaƒ nad TwórczoÊcià Cypriana Norwida These features are preserved in the translation. The only (Cyprian Norwid Research Institute) at the Catholic University of Lublin; Pracownia J∏zyka Cypriana Norwida thing that was not rendered by the translator is (Cyprian Norwid Language Research Workshop) at the “Łagodne oko bł∏kitu” (gentle eye of the blue), a phrase University of Warsaw; Pracownia Kalendarza Îycia i probably untranslatable into English. The Polish TwórczoÊci Norwida (Workshop on the Life and Work of “bł∏kit” (azure blue, sky blue) can mean the azure blue Cyprian Norwid) at Adam Mickiewicz Uniwersity in color, heaven, and sky at the same time. Used together Poznaƒ. with “a benign eye,” it can indicate the eye of God or [8] The annual Studia Norwidiana founded at the Catholic just a planet, whether the moon or the sun.[22] This University of Lublin in 1983. ambiguity is usually lost in translation because [9] A. Brajerska-Mazur, Bibliografia przekładów utworów translators of Norwid’s text must decide from the very Norwida na j∏zyk angielski, Studia Norwidiana, 1999–2000, beginning who or what “gwiazd∏ zrzuca ze szczytu” nos. 17–18, 385–393. Supplemented, updated, and with references to websites, the bibliography was republished in nos. 24–25 of Studia Norwidiana, 2006–2007, 387–391. January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1727 [10] C. K. Norwid, Poezje/Poems, trans. by A. Czerniawski Cyprian Kamil Norwid (Kraków: WL, 1986), p. 129. [11] G. M. Hyde, Cyprian Kamil Norwid: ‘Yesterday – And Fatum – I’, in A. Czerniawski, The Mature Laurel (Cardiff: Seren Books, 1991), p. 91. I [12] Among others Claire S. Allen, Teresa Bałuk, Keith Jak dziki zwierz przyszło N i e s z c z ∏ Ê c i e do Bosley, Christine Brooke-Rose, Adam Czerniawski, Lola człowieka Gay-Tifft, Gerald T. Kapolka, Tymoteusz Karpowicz, I zatopiło weƒ fatalne oczy. . . Watson Kirkconnell, Charles S. Kraszewski, Jerzy A. - Czeka - - Laskowski, Michael A.Michael, Michael J. MikoÊ, Edmund Czy, człowiek, zboczy? Ordon, Jerzy Peterkiewicz, Ilona Ralf-Sues, Olga Scherer- II Virski, Burns Singer, Reuel Wilson. Lecz on odejrzał mu, jak gdy artysta [13] C. Norwid, Poems, translated from the Polish by D. Mierzy swojego kształt modelu; Borchardt in collaboration with A. Brajerska-Mazur (New I spostrzegło, že on patrzy – c o? skorzysta York: Archipelago Books, 2011). [14] A. Brajerska-Mazur, “Ten Commandments for the Na swym nieprzyjacielu: Translation of the Works of Cyprian Norwid (and what came I zachwiało si∏ całà postaci wagà from them or, on the translations of Danuta Borchardt),” - - I nie ma go! Polish Review, vol. LIII (2008, no. 4), 495–540. [15] I discuss their work in detail in O angielskich Fate tłumaczeniach utworów Norwida (Lublin: TN KUL, 2002), I and in several articles. Such beastly Anguish, human-baiting, [16] Ibid., pp. 71–144. With fateful eyes transfixed its prey. . . [17] I have written extensively about this method in O - Waiting - - angielskich…, pp. 9–14; Katena and Translation of Literary Now will he turn away? Masterpieces, Babel, vol. 51 (2005), 16–30; O przekładzie na j∏zyk angielski wierszy Norwida “Âmierç,” “Do II zeszłej…,” “Finis,” Pami∏tnik Literacki, XCVII (2006), Instead the stare was fair returned, book 4, 229–37; and Katena a przekład współczesnej poezji As artists size up subjects top to toe; polskiej, in Translatio i literatura, edited by A. Kukułka- Aware the human had discerned - Wojtasik (Warsaw: UW, 2011), pp. 27–34. What gain he’d draw [18] Cf. I. Gał∏zowska, Norwida myÊlenie o człowieku, in from such a foe, Norwid žywy, edited by W. Günther (London: Gryf Printers, It shuddered to its very core 1962), pp. 287–309; Z. Łapiƒski, Norwid (Kraków: Znak, - - And it’s no more! 1971), p. 53f.; A. Dunajski, “Człowiek–Boga žywego Translated by Patrick Corness obraz,” Studia Norwidiana, no. 1 (1983), 81–88; M. Inglot, “Norwidowski ‘człowiek’,” Pami∏tnik Literacki, 1983, W Weronie brochure 4; P. Chlebowski, “Cypriana Norwida Rzecz o WolnoÊci Słowa,” Ku epopei chrzeÊcijaƒskiej (Lublin: TN KUL, 2000); S. Sawicki, “Norwidowy człowiek,” in 1 CzterdzieÊci i cztery studia ofiarowane profesorowi Nad Kapuletich i Montekich domem, Marianowi Maciejewskiemu, edited by D. Seweryn, W. Spłukane deszczem, poruszone gromem, Kaczmarek and A. Seweryn (Lublin: TN KUL, 2008), pp. Łagodne oko bł∏kitu - 291–293; A. Brajerska-Mazur, “Ten Commandments,” pp. 2 511–13. Patrzy na gruzy nieprzyjaznych grodów [19] This definition of “man” is taken from Norwid’s poem Na rozwalone bramy do ogrodów, “Sfinks.” See O angielskich, pp. 351–52 and A. Brajerska- I gwiazd∏ zrzuca ze szczytu - Mazur, “Ten Commandments,” pp. 504–505. [20] See Sawicki, “Norwidowy człowiek,” fn. 18. 3 [21] Brajerska-Mazur, O angielskich, pp. 368–71. Cyprysy mówià, že to dla Julietty, [22] Norwidologists dispute over this issue. See A. Îe dla Romea ta łza znad planety Brajerska-Mazur, “Norwid w tłumaczeniu M.J. Mikosia,” Spada– i groby przecieka: Studia Norwidiana, no. 22 (2004), 273–84; also “Aspekty 4 malarskie wiersza Norwida ‘W Weronie’ w przekładzie na A ludzie mówià, i mówià uczenie, j∏zyk angielski,” in Poeta i sztukmistrz. O twórczoÊci Îe to nie łzy sà, ale že kamienie, poetyckiej i artystycznej Norwida, edited by P. Chlebowski I– že nikt na nie nie czeka! (Lublin: TN KUL, 2007), pp. 229–48. 1728 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 In Verona governance—we have become a partner worth courting.”[1] 1 Poland has also reaped benefits on the economic front On Capulets’ and Montagues’ domains, in the form of transfers from Brussels to Warsaw. From A thunder-struck sky, refreshed by rains May 2004 through February 2012, Poland received a Looks down with a benign blue eye - net total of 39 billion euros from the EU. Writing for 2 the Warsaw Voice, Andrzej Ratajczyk estimates that Surveys the ruins of feuding estates, Poland will be eventually be the beneficiary of over The shattered remains of their garden gates, 80 billion euros from various EU funding sources.[2] And casts a star from up on high - In fact, Poland has been the largest beneficiary of EU 3 funding to date. Poland has gained access to both EU The cypresses say on Juliet’s head, structural and cohesion funds. During the past seven And Romeo’s, a cosmic tear is shed, years the Polish economy has grown faster than any And down into their graves it seeps: other economy within the EU, recording a growth rate 4 of over 30 percent; the EU-27 economy grew at a mere But people say in learned tones 6 percent over this same period, reflecting a severe No tears are these, they’re only stones, economic downturn. Estimated GDP rise for 2012 is And no one a vigil there keeps. 2.4 percent (the first quarter of 2012 showed a growth Translated by Patrick Corness of 3.5 percent)—still the fastest growth recorded in the European Union.[3] In the period between accession in 2004 and 2012, Poland has continued to be an Poland, the European Union, and attractive location for foreign direct investment, the combined value of which now exceeds 160 billion the Euro euros. In the previously quoted article Economist An Uncertain Landscape reports: “The free-floating zloty was an advantage in the financial crisis. A weaker currency supported Leo V. Ryan, C.S.V. and Richard J. Hunter, Jr exports and foreign investments; it also raised the value of EU funds, which are euro denominated.” oland’s membership in the European Union has Pimplied eventual acceptance of the euro as Poland’s Other indicators point to strong economic progress national currency. It is now apparent that after many as well. Polish exports have nearly tripled from 47.5 fits and starts, the two issues may not be inextricably billion euros in 2003 (approximately $60.61) to 136 bound together. In fact, Poland may continue its EU billion euros in 2011 (approximately $173.53 billion). membership and still not convert to the use of the euro The EU is now Poland’s main trading partner any time soon. How did Poland reach this juncture of accounting for 78.6 percent of Poland’s exports and policy and reality? 58.8 percent of Poland’s imports. Wages for Polish workers have grown by one-third since 2004, but are Since Poland joined the EU on May 1, 2004, even still only one-third of the EU average. In 2011 Eurostat the most hard-line Eurosceptics, especially in the reported that the average gross wage in Poland was important agricultural sector, have had to admit that equivalent to 800 euros per month ($1,020.80), or 33 Poland has benefited from membership. On the percent higher than wages recorded in 2005. The political side, Poland now participates in certain average gross wages in the EU was 2,177 euros per decisions at the EU ministerial level, signaling Poland’s month (approximately $2,758 a month), which grew return to Europe as a full and participating member. by 11.5 percent since 2004. However, these are This change in perspective was expressed by Polish Purchasing Power Parity figures; the actual dollar Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski in an optimistic way: amount is lower. In actual dollars Poland’s GDP per “We have reaffirmed our status as a heavyweight person is three and a half times lower than that in member state. We changed Poland’s image from a neighboring Germany and one of the lowest in the EU: country that only benefits from the EU to a country $12,480 in Poland versus $43,980 in Germany.[4] that—true—benefits, but also inspires others to act. Today when others think of Poland, they think of Polish agriculture—initially the most skeptical of all economic growth, a modern country, and effective economic sectors regarding EU membership—has January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1729 undergone rapid modernization mainly due to the at some “appropriate time” in the future. Poland has infusion of EU funds, the introduction of new continued to delay the adoption of the euro—which technologies, and managerial changes introduced by many now see as a decidedly positive occurrence. Marek Sawicki, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Writing in the New York Times, Jack Ewing notes: “Not Development. There are approximately two million being part of the euro zone turns out to have been a farms in Poland, which account for 27.5 percent of the blessing for Poland—a lesson in how a national Polish labor force. Major farm products available for currency can help a country absorb international export include grains, sugar, pork, processed meats, shocks.” Ewing asks presciently: “Does Poland have and dairy products. Mainly due to the strong the last healthy economy in Europe?”[7] agricultural sector, the balance of trade in Polish Reflecting the then-strong consensus in Poland about foodstuffs has created a surplus of 3 billion euros ($3.28 the adoption of the euro, in November 2008 Prime billion). As Minister Sawicki noted: “Today Poland’s Minister Donald Tusk announced a plan or “roadmap” dairy and meat processing sectors are among the most to adopt the euro by 2012, although he stated that should advanced not only in Europe but also in the world.”[5] adverse circumstances arise the plan was open to However, the opposition party (PiS, or Law and discussion.[8] It should be noted that the adoption of Justice) points out that not all is well. During the five the euro was nonetheless controversial since it would years of Prime Minister Tusk’s tenure, Poland’s external require an amendment to Poland’s Constitution and indebtedness grew by 70 percent. Huge corruption would also require the unusual cooperation of Poland’s scandals (most recently Amber Gold and transportation two major political parties—now bitter rivals on the contracts) continue to rock the country.[6] The number Polish political scene. The initial deadline came and of families in extreme poverty has not gone down and, went,[9] and has been postponed many times. After its in the past year, began to increase, while household defeat in the parliamentary election of fall 2011, PiS savings have decreased. In spite of Foreign Minister (Law and Justice Party) raised the political stakes and Sikorski’s optimistic speech cited above, Poland is not announced through its leader, former prime minister a heavyweight member of the EU; in fact, Poland has Jarosław Kaczyƒski, that Poland should delay entry into no access to the deliberations of the EU “heavyweights” the Eurozone for at least two decades. concerning the bailout of Greece and related issues. Andrzej Ratajczyk, the main economics reporter for Former Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyƒski’s party Warsaw Voice, has made a conventional pro-euro capitalizes on these weaknesses in the hope of returning argument by asserting that the failure to adopt the euro to power after the next election. “slows the inflow of foreign direct investment, makes What would happen if the EU disintegrated? Foreign business planning more difficult for the investors, and Minister Sikorski summed up the “worst case scenario” makes the Polish market less transparent and of the failure of the European Union. Among the predictable.”[10] Because Poland is not a member of “casualties” might be: the single currency Eurozone, businesses operating within Poland are exposed to what he termed “currency * the dismantling of the Schengen system fluctuation risks.” * more and more countries closing their national borders to repel “economic migrants” from Several questions are apparent: Is the future of the former EU Member States EU tied to the future of the euro? Does the further * the disappearance of the EU “single labor economic and political deterioration of Portugal, Italy, market” Ireland, Greece, and Spain threaten the very existence * Common Agricultural Policy and Cohesion of the EU as an institution? As of fall 2012, 68 percent Policy funding will disappear of Poles do not support euro adoption; only 25 percent * the reimposition of customs barriers signaled their support.[11] Reality now require answers * the return of economic protectionism to a basic question: if Poland rejects the euro and the EU continues its decline, can Poland chance a return All of these hold major implications for Poland. In an to the uncertainties of a Europe that might suffer the issue that mirrors both political and economic aspects negative consequences (as outlined above) of its own but no longer necessarily linked, there is also the disintegration? This is the policy question that Poland question of Poland’s future adoption of the euro as its and other nations have to face if the euro fails or if national currency. When Poland joined the European Union in 2004 it committed itself to adopting the euro 1730 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 Poland embarks on a “go-it-alone” policy and retains united energy policy, especially one that relies less on the zloty as its currency. Δ Russia. Given these weaknesses and vulnerabilities, Poland and her vital interests are seen by both Russia NOTES and the West as irrelevant and dispensable on the [1] Radek Sikorski to the Polish Parliament, March 29, 2012, as reported in Warsaw Voice, May 2012, p. 13. international stage. Poland’s ability to maintain some [2] “Economic and Financial indicators,” Economist, 11 economic growth amidst the rest of Europe’s stagnation August 2012, p. 80. and fiscal crises mitigates this perception of weakness [3] World Bank figures for 2011, as reported by BBC’s and dispensability, but only marginally. Country Profiles (bbc.co.uk/search/?q=Country profiles). A bright spot on this geopolitical map is KGHM [4] IMF report released 9 October 2012, as reported by Polska Miedê Corporation and its emergence as a global , accessed 10 presence in the international corporate landscape October 2012. illuminates a path to elevating Poland’s geostrategic [5] Marek Sawicki, “50 Years of the CAP,” Warsaw Voice, position in a key dimension and suggests a number of May 2012, p. 19. [6] Mariusz Majewski and Piotr Pałka, “Przypadki policies that Poland should consider that could reverse prezydenta Gdaƒska,” Uwazamrze, 14 October 2012 (http:/ its tenuous geostrategic status and make it an /www.uwazamrze.pl/artykul/941953-Przypadki-prezydenta- increasingly respected power in Europe. While these Gdanska.html), accessed 14 October 2012. policies could be implemented individually, they would [7] Jack Ewing, “Poland Skirts Euro Zone Woes, for Now,” be much more effective if pursued in an integrated New York Times, 15 December 2011, at strategic fashion. . dependence on Russian gas and oil by purchasing as [8] Polish News Bulletin, 10 December, 2008, quoting much as possible from other exporters. Russia behaves Gazeta Wyborcza, 9 December 2008. like a virtual monopolist. It has regularly used energy [9] Richard J. Hunter, Jr. and Leo V. Ryan, C.S.V., “Poland and the Euro,” Sarmatian Review, vol. 29, no. 3 (2009), embargoes and blackmail as strategic weapons. The 1491–92. fact that more powerful countries like Germany have [10] Andrzej Ratajczyk, “Poland in the EU: The Talley Eight little problem with dependence on Russia is strange Years On,” Warsaw Voice, May 2012, p. 11. and disconcerning, but for Poland to tolerate such [11] “Augustinian Delay,” Economist, 18 August 2012, at dependence on Russia is the height of imprudence . bordering on recklessness. Poland has no reason whatsoever to be willfully blind toward Russia. Poland Poland on the Geopolitical Map should thus seek to import energy resources from as many suppliers as possible, particularly from friendly states. The more business Poland gives to such states, John Lenczowski the more it can positively influence their policies toward it. Similarly, if such states cease to be friendly, would like to share some reflections about Poland’s Poland can take its business elsewhere. Poland’s Igeostrategic position and how it might be strategic position and geographic attributes can be made strengthened for the sake of Poland’s independence, into an advantage if she were to make a concerted effort security, and prosperity, thus strengthening Europe’s to become an energy hub and a source of natural security. A country’s access to natural resources is a resources. This would mean maximizing the capability major factor in determining its geostrategic position. of receiving liquefied natural gas (LNG) at its ports Poland’s dependence on Russian natural gas and oil, and to “re-gasify” the LNG. This way LNG could be coupled with underdevelopment of her own natural imported from various foreign suppliers, even from as resource extraction, translates into weakness. This far away as Qatar. weakness is aggravated by Poland’s geographic Poland could also develop major gas and oil facilities location between Russia and Germany and the to harbor strategic reserves in case of a Russian continued tendency of these two neighbors to cooperate embargo or other crisis. Where Russia’s strategy is with each other on various economic and strategic building pipelines to Western Europe that bypass projects, as well as by Poland’s decision to seek both Poland and other “troublesome” East Central European security and greater prosperity by joining the European countries that are much more sober about Russia’s Union when the EU has shown inability to develop a January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1731 hegemonic goals, Poland should encourage pipelines States alone there are now economic interests, jobs, that will rival Nord Stream and South Stream. Such and tax revenues at stake in at least two states; these rivals could include pipelines from Ukraine (Odessa- two states not only have congressmen, they have two Brody), from Norway, and from the Caucasus senators each who have great actual and potential (Nabucco). Poland’s future contingency plans should influence. New possible joint ventures between KGHM include importing from a changed regime in Iran. With and major foreign companies could harness the rival pipelines converging throughout Poland, the influence those companies have over their host country’s position as an energy hub would raise its governments and assuming that KGHM’s acquisition geostrategic position and influence throughout Europe. and joint ventures are good investments, they will yield All of Europe would then be less dependent on Russia. ever greater income for Poland. Exploiting all these The next and obvious policy is for Poland to opportunities means that Poland can become a maximize the exploitation of its own natural resources significant power in natural resources on whom others and those abroad to which it is gaining access: shale can become dependent. If you doubt the strategic gas, geothermal springs, atomic power, coal (including importance of this issue, look at China’s successful coal liquefaction), and other strategic materials strategy of focusing on developing and securing vital including rare earth metals. The full development of natural resources such as rare earth metals at home and the country’s shale gas is utterly strategic. A report from throughout the world. To fail to exploit these April 2011 by the U.S. government’s Energy opportunities would be akin to your ancestors failing Information Agency states that Poland has the largest to develop Poland’s famous salt mines. shale gas deposits in Europe and the ninth largest in Doing all of this is mostly a question of national will. the world. These deposits could cover Poland’s needs It requires overcoming both external and internal at current usage rates for the next 380 years. The cost resistance. First, Russia will oppose all this. It can be of extracting this gas, using the cost in the United States, expected to develop and, I strongly suspect, continue is two and a half times cheaper than what Poland pays existing covert influence operations in Poland to Gazprom. prevent these policies. It will do the same elsewhere Geothermal energy is another possibility for Poland in the EU. It can be expected to perpetrate economic but little has been done to exploit this, which is blackmail through its SVR-controlled companies or surprising considering that this is a “green” source and organized crime syndicates. Some EU countries and much more promising than the windmills I saw near officials can be expected to oppose Polish energy Poznaƒ last year. Coal frightens some initiatives. Some of this will come under the pretext environmentalists, but the fact is that coal technology of preventing allegedly anthropogenic global warming, has been improving for years. With its vast coal although this theory is far from having been proven. supplies Poland should be at the forefront in the Of course there is climate change, but there was development of the best technologies to exploit this massive climate change millions of years before sport resource. This includes clean coal, coal liquefaction, utility vehicles were roaming the earth. Some Polish and gasification. corporate executives and politicians will oppose some Then there is nuclear power. Companies like General of these policies so as not to threaten commercial or Atomics in the United States have developed small, political relations with Russia, Germany, and the modular, portable reactors that do not melt down, are European Union. I do not accuse or condemn such cooled by helium, are less vulnerable to weapons figures, especially for pursuing rational commercial proliferation, and can convert waste to power. Poland self-interest. But here is a classic problem of a free should work with such companies and develop its own society: it should be recognized that not all private nuclear power industry. interests are congruent with the national interest. It The extraordinary rise of KGHM provides a new should also be recognized that republican, model for Poland to enhance its geostrategic position representative government is especially vulnerable to in this regard. As you all know, KGHM’s acquisition foreign influence. of Quadrant and its resources in the Western Resistance to all these forms of opposition to Polish Hemisphere offers Poland new strategic opportunities independence in energy and natural resources is and strength that include access to various natural absolutely necessary. It will require a serious resources, including strategic materials; influence in counterintelligence effort to expose, diminish, and Canada, the United States, and Chile. In the United defeat Russian overt and covert influence in Poland, 1732 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 and diminish the ill effects of certain German the moral and cultural relativism that denies that one influences. Poland has one of the world’s greatest culture and way of life is morally superior to another. counterintelligence traditions. Counterintelligence is Of all the countries in Europe, it can be argued that one of the most important arts of statecraft. It is not Poland has the strongest national immune system, but just counter-espionage; it also involves like other countries on the continent there are signs counterinfluence operations and counterdeception. that this system is weakening. This could arguably be Poland’s highest national Successful resistance to Russian and EU opposition security priority. Also needed is an effort to resist EU to Polish energy and resources independence will also attempts to restrict Poland’s domestic natural resources require an information and political influence campaign and energy production on environmental grounds as both inside the country, in the EU, and even in Russia. well as German, Russian, and Chinese attempts to It will have to make many arguments supporting a acquire Polish companies either for their own resource strong Polish energy and natural resources sector. Some needs or to enhance those powers’ influence in Poland. of this influence campaign could very well be done Such resistance requires preserving and vigilantly through covert intelligence channels. Information and protecting Polish national identity and sovereignty. strategic influence operations are decidedly not For all the attempts to create a “European” identity, reserved for superpowers. Poland may not be able to the entire project should be recognized as a utopian afford an aircraft carrier battle group, but it can afford attempt to pretend that the habits, customs, and to utilize the various instruments of strategic influence. traditions developed over centuries do not exist. If a What should a Polish information and influence pan-European identity that could supersede national campaign convey? identities ever develops, it will only be based on the First, that Polish national sovereignty and the strength very foundation of European civilization: on to maintain national independence is in the long-term Christendom. Those who deny the Christian roots of interest of European peace and stability. Indeed, Polish Europe may no longer be believing Christians, but they weakness translates into a “provocative weakness” that are living off the fumes of values and principles that produces hegemonism on the part of Poland’s neighbors brought about the distinctions between Western and, as history has repeatedly demonstrated, the civilization and those cultures that deny the dignity of possibility of war. Second, that Polish energy the human person (including the dignity of women), independence and the creation in Poland of an and the human rights that derive from that dignity with alternative energy hub will help Europe avoid its transcendent source. A sense of realism dictates that vulnerability to Russian energy blackmail. Third, that Polish culture is Polish, and that wearing a new funny- Poland’s policies are not harmful to Russia (this would colored hat does not make its wearer any less Polish. be part of a public diplomacy campaign directly Poland’s national interest will be optimally protected targeting the Russian people). Fourth, that science has if Polish companies remain truly Polish. In America it not proven that climate change is anthropogenic, and is fashionable among some companies to style that any precipitous action that restricts the use of fossil themselves now as “global companies,” but as Thomas fuels to such an extent that it harms economic growth Friedman has derisively argued, what will one of these can only jeopardize the very technological development companies do when it runs into major trouble abroad— on which the health of people and the environment make an emergency call to the Microsoft navy? The depend. Fifth, that it is environmentally safe to extract serious protection of a country’s national identity, shale gas, a process that takes place in regions deep sovereignty, and civilization requires recognition of the below the water table. Sixth, that modern nuclear importance of strengthening what I call the “national reactors, particularly small modular and portable ones, immune system.” This has to do with the moral-cultural are extraordinarily environmentally safe and can be health of the nation. It represents a collective strength buried or evacuated in the rare case of system failure. of conviction in the values and principles that make Poland will need to develop greater military the best things about a nation’s way of life possible. A capabilities to overcome its weak national security strong national immune system requires people to posture that renders it vulnerable to energy blackmail believe in a cause higher than themselves and their own and other external pressures. Without a credible military pleasures, a people ready to make sacrifices for such deterrent, such vulnerability will persist to one degree values and principles as freedom, human rights, and or another. Beyond the standard elements of military respect for the dignity of others. It necessarily rejects and naval power, the deterrent forces that Poland must January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1733 develop should particularly include asymmetric as Solzhenitsyn observed, it comes from stout hearts military capabilities such as a serious cyberwarfare and steadfast men. It comes from strength of capability (Poland’s tradition of excellence in conviction. When you have this, there is the will to mathematics makes this a natural strategic attribute that acquire the necessary material things. In the cold war— must not be neglected); electronic weapons capable of which was not just between the East and the West, but disrupting the command, control, communications, within the East and within the West, between those who computers, and technical intelligence capabilities of recognized the existence of a natural moral law and enemies; missile defenses; laser weapons capable of those who asserted that law and morals come from the blinding enemy satellites; and various guerrilla warfare barrel of a gun—security and ultimately freedom came capabilities. The development of a domestic nuclear from spiritual strength, courage, and faith. Poland energy industry has implied potential capabilities as understood this and, by virtue of its culture, history, well. Poland will need domestic economic policies that and traditions, should continue to understand this better provide incentives for domestic energy production and than anyone else. Δ entrepreneurial growth in general. In practice, this ______means low tax rates, low levels of regulation (excessive This paper is based on address to the Conference on regulation acts as a major incentive for corruption), Energy and Natural Resources Industries in Geopolitics, the protection and proper legal identification of private sponsored by KGHM Polska Miedê, 4 June 2012, property, the rule of law (including the enforcement of Warsaw, Poland. robust anticorruption laws), and a stable currency. Poland has the opportunity and the potential to become an economic powerhouse. Its ability to grow Unvanquished in the midst of EU stagnation and fiscal crises in Joseph Pilsudski, Ressurrected Poland and the Struggle Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy demonstrates this for Eastern Europe possibility. Economic policies that promise true economic growth will facilitate the development of by Peter Hetherington. 2d ed. Houston, TX: Pingora small business and not favor the attempts of big Press, 2012. 752 pages. Photographs, timeline, business to stifle competition from upstart companies. bibliography. ISBN-10: 0983656312; ISBN-13: 978- So long as small business can thrive jobs will be created 0983656319. Hardcover. $21.95 on Amazon.com. in Poland and the youthful Polish workforce will not need to flee to the West to find opportunity. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz Finally, the Polish government should pursue the policy of encouraging demographic growth among the n the 1980s chemical engineer Richard Watt Polish population. Demography is destiny. Countries I published a beautiful Piłsudskiite tale of interwar with large populations are strong; those with small Poland. In 2012 geologist Peter Hetherington has gifted populations are weak. Poland does not have high us with a lyrically gripping biography of the man population density. One cannot have a growing himself: Józef Piłsudski. Unvanquished is a economy without a growing workforce. If Europeans fantastically unbelievable story of a scion of landed persist in their civilizational fatigue, relativism, nobility; a Kresowiak of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; demographic suicide, and the hosting of burgeoning a nationalist socialist revolutionary; a romantic; a spy, non-Western populations, Poland can choose between a fighter, a train robber; a self-taught military man; free being Poland or a country half-filled with people from Poland’s first marshal; a self-anointed savior of the non-Western cultures who do not share the values, Commonwealth with a mass following; a charismatic principles, habits and traditions that make possible a leader turned nocturnal solitaire-playing misanthrope; society of morally ordered liberty, self-government, a successful putschist; a cranky but mild dictator; a tolerance, trust, and prosperity and who, given the serial husband and lover and tender, if largely absentee patterns of intercultural relations in recent decades, are father; a scathing hater of party politics and not likely to assimilate. parliamentarism; a dabbler turned serious foreign In the United States patriotism is the central pillar of policy expert; and a leftist neopagan agnostic enamored our national security. It requires the will to serve a cause with Our Lady of the Sharp Gate. But first and higher than oneself. Ultimately, true security does not foremost, after grueling travails and disappointments, come from nuclear umbrellas or other material things; years of imprisonment and underground, and fifteen 1734 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 years of almost uninterrupted armed struggle, Józef mentions Pancho Villa and Vladimir Lenin, who also Piłsudski ultimately became a huge success. He took indulged in robberies, directly or indirectly, to expedite credit for Poland’s independence, including winning a revolution. Even more poignantly, departing from the Polish-Bolshevik War, and he seized power in a standard apologies for the coup d’état of 1926, coup d’état in 1926 and never relinquished it until his Heatherington rejects the notion that it was either a death. “Rather than a petty dictator of a third-rate power latter-day Polish noble rokosz or a konfederacja. as I had been led to believe from the brief references Instead, he flatly admits that Piłsudski’s putsch was he is usually afforded in most general texts, Pilsudski akin to Benito Mussolini’s march on Rome. Laudably, [sic] was dynamic, eminently interesting, and an the author uses the term “fascism” primarily as a important historical figure” (pp. x–xi).What’s there not descriptive and not an invective. to like? Not so in Heatherington’s treatment of the National This is a fascinating adventure, and the author clearly Democracy. There are reasons for this. If he was enjoys sharing it with the reader: “Although not of stunned to have discovered virtually nothing on Józef Polish ancestry, I have come to appreciate Pilsudski Piłsudski and Poland in English-language and the Polish people with the zeal of a convert” (xiii). historiography, even less can be found on Roman Heatherington freely confesses to his nearly total Dmowski and his Endeks. They are nonpersons, the ignorance of the subject before commencing the project virtual Other of Western historiography, in the United of retracing the marshal’s progress. He poetically States in particular. At best they exist as the whipping introduces the hero at the nadir of his journey, faking boys of modern Polish history; at worst they are called schizophrenia in a Tsarist prison, which ultimately Polish Nazis. Thus Hetherington repeats the allegations facilitated his successful escape. Fortuna is the that during the Riga negotiations in 1920, Poland failed leitfmotif of Unvanquished, and “once again, Pilsudski to claim its former (eastern, xiii), provinces up to got lucky” (581) is the refrain of the biography. But Smolensk because of the Endeks. True, the nationalists one gets the sneaky feeling that studying Ziuk [Polish did argue that it would have resulted in taking too many diminutive of Joseph, Ed.] was an excuse to learn about unassimilable non-Polish minorities. However, that his country and people and to share the knowledge with option was never on the table; Lenin was not giving the unsuspecting American reader: “Unvanquished is anything away, as even the neo-Piłsudskite scholar not only a biography of an interesting historical figure, Andrzej Nowak has admitted. “In geology, there is a but also a vehicle to understand one of the most premium on being correct, not just creative, and I tried fascinating, and misunderstood, elements of European to apply this philosophy to my book,” states history, providing an enhanced appreciation of the Hetherington (xiii), but he fails to note the black causes of WWII and insights into contemporary issues propaganda concerning the Endeks. Alvin Marcus in Europe” (xiii). Fountain’s biography of Roman Dmowski’s early life Hetherington’s book is a panoramic foray into the would have helped here. Heatherington states that as a history of the lands of the Commonwealth of Poland- scientist he is “accustomed to evaluating large volumes Lithuania before, during, and after the partitions of the of information and creating an internally consistent, eighteenth century. It is also a study in military strategy, coherent interpretation within the bounds of the data.” an inquiry into geopolitics, and a glimpse at political What if the data is lacking? Here we encounter the huge decision making among the colonial powers that problem of consulting only English-language sources. controlled Poles and others. All this is woven into a With these reservations in mind, it has to be said that Carlylean scheme of “hero in history”– Piłsudski like Hetherington joins the considerable group of Piłsudski a “granite rock,” to borrow from his favorite Romantic admirers. He wisely rejects mendacious propaganda, poet, Juliusz Słowacki. Soviet and Western, about Piłsudski being a ruthless In the course of weighing Ziuk’s considerable dictator, but he barely qualifies the effusions of the achievements and transgressions Heatherington does marshal’s true believers and the explications of his mild not shy away from controversial analogies. For supporters (e.g., Wacław J∏drzejewicz and Kamil example, while generally approving of Piłsudski’s Dziewanowski respectively). He agrees with Piłsudski expropriation operations (his suporters have insisted on every major point, most notably on his decision to that he was reclaiming back that which the Russian fight in 1905 and 1914, as well as on his role in winning government had stolen from Poland), the author independence in 1918 and scoring victory over Lenin in 1920, despite his refusal (wrong, in my opinion) to January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1735 support the Whites against the Reds. The author waves n recent years publishers are beginning to pay more off any competition to his hero’s pedestal, such as Iattention to English-language anthologies of Jewish General Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski. He also passes Polish literature as the publications of such anthologies over in silence the suicide of Piłsudski’s two jilted are increasing in number. The latest is Hava Bromberg girlfriends and the murder of General Włodzimierz Ben-Zvi’s compilation. Besides the goal stated in her Zagórski by the marshal’s death squad. Piłsudski’s trip introduction, the editor’s aim is clear and can be to Japan is seen as a “diplomatic mission,” even though reconstructed from the trajectory inscribed in the table his contacts were military intelligence officers. A useful of contents. The book is intended to narrate the history critique of Piłsudski’s eulogists can be found in Ryszard of the Jewish people in Polish lands. However, the Âwi∏tek’s Lodowa Êciana: Sekrety polityki Józefa editor decided to skip premodern representation of Jews Piłsudskiego, 1904-1918 (Kraków: Platan, 1998). in Polish literature. Her selection thus begins with Reading Heatherington I was reminded of one of my nineteenth-century realist writers such as Sholem Asch teachers at Columbia, Joseph Rothschild. The professor and, on the Polish side, the Polish Positivists. This first was also fond of the Komendant and no amount of part is titled “Our World of Yesterday.” The largest argument to the contrary could change that. Piłsudski and central to the anthology is the second part titled did have a magnetic personality, volcanically “Years of Flame and Fury.” It deals with the Second overwhelming mere mortals with his power, courage, World War and the Holocaust. The third and last part, and charisma. tellingly entitled “To Live Again,” narrates postwar Unvanquished is a delight for the layman. Let me emigration of Polish Jews to America and their return qualify this. By layman, I do not simply mean an to their homeland in the Middle East. Thus the literary average English-speaking enthusiast who will find this history of Polish Jewry is compacted into, more or less, particular portrait of Piłsudski enchanting and exciting 150 years of modernity. It receives an obvious linearity and who will gladly lend his ear to the triumphs and informed by the Diaspora, the pivotal events brought tragedies of Poland’s past; by layman I mean an average upon the Jews during the Shoah, the postwar exodus historian or other social scientist at an American from Poland, and the subsequent rebirth of the Jewish university. This applies to most Europeanists, including nation. This works under the guiding assumption that many so called “Eastern European experts.” the reader can extract the rest from the introduction, Hetherington deserves much credit for overcoming but above all it serves to speak of history in a nearly layers of cultural prejudice against Poland and mythologizing tone. presenting before the American people Józef Piłsudski, Instead of dwelling on the shortcoming (and its his times, his compatriots, and his nation without the consequences) of limiting oneself to only 150 years— customary uninformed venom. Unvanquished is a the excluded works of Polish Romantic literature would stupendous improvement over the prevalent acute have enriched the anthology greatly—I feel obliged to ignorance afflicting America’s relation to Poland’s address the most striking and positive aspect of history. Once again, Piłsudski has been blessed Bromberg Ben-Zvi’s anthology: her inclusion of little- posthumously by Lady Luck. Δ known and unknown voices. It appears that this strategy is meant to complement two previously published Portraits in Literature anthologies: Harold B. Segel’s Stranger in Our Midst: Images of the Jew in Polish Literature and Antony The Jews of Poland Polonsky’s and Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska’s An Anthology Contemporary Jewish Writing in Poland. Both books have their own merits and both offer selections from Compiled, edited and introduction by Hava the canonical literature or from the recent literary Bromberg Ben-Zvi. London and Portland, OR: production that is currently entering the canon. Valentine Mitchell, in association with The European Bromberg Ben-Zvi’s perspective is more inclusive as Jewish Publication Society, 2011. xxxix + 331 pages. she includes texts written by such women as little-kown Bibliography and Glossary. ISBN 978 0 85303 873 3. personalities Vladka Meed, Anna Cwiakowska, and Cloth. many others. The effect is definitely eclectic and, occasionally, surprising since the texts are not limited Božena Shallcross to literary works (in spite of the title, which so suggests), but include testimonies and essays. The 1736 SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2013 editor’s sources are possibly other anthologies, some eventually escaped from the camp to join the Polish of them forgotten or at least not properly acknowledged. Home Army and fight against the Soviet occupation of It should be pointed out that the Polish titles contain Poland at the end of the Second World War. numerous errors. As for the literary portrayals, the The Auschwitz Volunteer is a translation of the final editor attempts to give a balanced view of the historical version of his diary that covers the period from the day development of Ashkenazi Jews in Polish lands. This he volunteered for Auschwitz in 1940 until shortly after is not an anthology prepared by a scholar and, I daresay, his escape from the camp in 1943. A literate and it is meant not for scholars but rather for those readers observant military officer, Pilecki was also possessed who are interested in the trials and tribulations of a good memory. His diary is clear and precise, and experienced by Polish Jews, as well as those who it propels the narrative of his imprisonment forward experience nostalgia for old times or have other with great force. In spite of its subject matter, the clarity personal or intellectual reasons to be interested in the of his writing makes the book difficult to put down. subject. What I find particularly valuable about the All of the details of the operation of Auschwitz that he anthology is the image of the editor herself as projected observed are carefully recorded here. Did he hope that through her selections, her enthusiasm for historical an accurate record would prevent genocides on this memory, and her ability to reassemble into a new and scale from occurring again? It did not, as Matthew engrossing whole individual voices scattered White’s recent book on atrocities has shown. We may throughout the history of the Ashkenazis in Poland. Δ hope that Pilecki’s book helps to reduce the frequency of these horrors. The Auschwitz Volunteer His diary has been published without any noticeable editing. By honoring Pilecki’s words as written, Aquila Beyond Bravery Polonica Publishing places the reader inside Pilecki’s thoughts and decisions as they unfold. We remain inside James E. Reid his descriptions of the blind luck that preserves one man’s life and ends another’s. An intrusive editor might By Captain Witold Pilecki. Translated by Jarek have altered these lines that occur on one page in Garliƒski. Introduction by Norman Davies. proximity: Foreword by Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland. Includes illustrations, maps, numerous they dug their metal talons into the disintegrating photographs, and an extensive index. Los Angeles, CA: corpses. Aquila Polonica Publishing [AquilaPolonica.com], In places small fountains of stinking pus spurted. 2012). 401 pages. ISBN 978-1-60772-010-2. Paper. $34.95. The beautiful horse chestnuts and apple trees bloomed (p.175).

oland was under German and Soviet occupation in Pilecki’s commitment to vividly describe what he saw P1940. At 6:00 a.m. on the morning of September trumps any concern about his style. His book shares 19, Polish Army captain Witold Pilecki walked down the characteristics of the need for truth with accounts a Warsaw street alone and voluntarily joined a group of others who have survived intolerable and hellish of men who had been captured by the German situations. Some of these include Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Schutzstaffel (SS) for transfer to Auschwitz. The group Archipelago, Gert Ledig’s description of surviving the was transported to this German concentration camp, Allied saturation bombing of Germany in Payback where over one million people mostly Jewish, were (Vergeltung), and a number of accounts by survivors murdered before the camp was liberated by Soviet of the starvation, cannibalism, and deaths of 40,000,000 forces in 1945. people under Mao Zedong’s rule. Many of these Given what we know now about Auschwitz, Pilecki’s accounts share the detailed recall and sharp description choice may appear incredible but at that time little was of histories that must be told and preserved, but known about the operation of Hitler’s Final Solution Pilecki’s account is remarkable for its extensive that eventually killed six million Jews. What was description and attention to small details. These known, for various reasons, did not lead to action by qualities are evident throughout this final version of the Allies. Pilecki wanted to know what was taking the diary that he wrote after his escape. He has the place at Auschwitz and what had happened to two of capacity to quickly judge whether a fellow inmate can his Polish Catholic comrades imprisoned there. He January 2013 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1737 be trusted; whether a camp guard has a shred of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Seweryna Szmaglewska, compassion, or none; whether a particular action will Anna Pawełczyƒska and others have also provided lead to a beating and death, or to survival; which side powerful descriptions of the conditions in Auschwitz of the razor’s edge could lead to life or death; and most but there is a different kind of power in the everyday important, whether the man beside him in a work detail intensity of the diary of this Polish officer. In German- or on the next cot will betray him. His summary of the occupied Warsaw, Pilecki volunteered to enter the hell central questions in a situation where betrayal was of this death camp on Polish soil in order to return with endemic is blunt: the story of an Auschwitz volunteer, only to be murdered by the government of Russian-occupied Camp was a proving ground of character. Poland, his country, for the sake of which he Some—slithered into a moral swamp. volunteered for the hell of Auschwitz. Others—chiseled themselves a character of finest Witold Pilecki’s diary has the courage to ask the crystal. difficult questions. Not philosophical, psychological, Everyone eventually went through this process of or aesthetic questions but a key question of the transformation (p. 50). twentieth century—whether to betray someone in order His clarity of judgment leads him to make decisions to save oneself. This question was perhaps the central that would be incredible if his account were not as question of the last century. Would you betray others, detailed as it is. In the midst of this hell of betrayal and and under what circumstances? The answer to this death, he begins to establish a network of cells of trusted question looms even larger in our century. Many people members. The five Polish members of each cell do not seem to be unaware that in thoughtlessly betraying know the members of any other cell. Inside Auschwitz, others, they are answering these questions without even they work underground toward the goal of liberating asking them. Δ

12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 the camp. Regardless of the effectiveness of this 12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 network, it is clear that it met a goal that Pilecki does not dwell on. These cells kept alive two things that are MORE BOOKS necessary for survival in hellish conditions—morale and hope. During Pilecki’s three years in Auschwitz, Poles in Wisconsin, by Susan Gibson MikoÊ. some members of these cells die or are tortured, but no Foreword by John Gurda. member betrays another member. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Near the end of his diary in 1943, he and a few friends Historical Society Press (, 2012. plan an escape from the camp. Their escape is hair- 134 pages. Index, maps, photographs. ISBN 978-0- raising. Even in their ravaged and weak condition, they 87020-422-7. $9.95. are treated with the kindness of strangers by the Poles very competent compendium of Polish they encounter on their way toward Bochnia in eastern A immigration to Wisconsin, the settlement of Poles Poland. At one point they are spotted by German there in the 1920s, Polish presence in Milwaukee, soldiers and come under heavy small arms fire, but Polish schools and Catholic churches built by Poles, they escape and are again assisted by Poles who and the contribution of Wisconsin Polish Americans themselves have next to nothing. to the cause of Poland’s liberty. The Foreword states In spite of his heroism in fighting the genocidal that “for most of the twentieth century Poles comprised Russian and German occupations of Poland, after the the state’s second-largest ethnic group.” Possibly the war Pilecki was tried as a traitor and Western spy by a beginning of the road for a researcher analyzing the Soviet-controlled court in Poland and executed. Two reasons why Poles have been virtually excluded from of the many photographs in the book reveal visually the circles of political power in Wisconsin (and in the much of the trajectory of his life. It is difficult to believe nation). There now exists a modest library of books that the youthful and thoughtful intelligence on the face about Polish immigrants to various states of the Union, Poles in of the young Polish Cavalry Officer Second Lieutenant including such works as John Radzilowski’s Minnesota Δ Witold Pilecki (p. xxxvi) is that of the same man (p. l) (2005). who was arrested in 1947 by the Ministry of Public

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12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 Security, a Soviet front. Except for his eyes, he is barely 12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 recognizable—he has been beaten and tortured while in custody. 1738 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2012

Aleksandra N. Lawera, MD Letters Aleksandra N. Lawera, MD - Medicine & Complete Wellness The role of anthologies 705 South Fry Road, suite 300 Piotr Wilczek’s article “The Literary Canon and Katy, TX 77450 Translations” (SR, 32/3, September 2012) ably phone (281) 599 - 0300 elucidates the critical role that published anthologies fax (281) 599 - 7807 and translations play in bringing Polish authors to the www.AleksandraLaweraMedicine.com attention of foreign readers. I have a small correction “I want to be more than your doctor. I want to be to make. With respect to his discussion of recent English translations of Jan Kochanowski’s Laments, I a partner on your journey toward personal would like to point out that my translation was first wellness.” published in 1995, with a second edition in 1998. Michael J. MikoÊ,University of Wisconsin- - Complete medical care for adults Milwaukee - Helping you get well and stay well - EndoPat - non-invasive test to help determine if you might be at risk for heart disease - BiosLife Slim - natural, safe, lasting weight loss - Zerona Laser - non-invasive FDA approved body Thank You Note countouring technology Board Certified - Internal Medicine Sarmatian Review and the Polish Institute of Houston are grateful to those readers who support the journal Mówimy po polsku! over and above the price of subscription. Without them it would be difficult to continue publication. Donations to Sarmatian Review and its publisher, the Polish Institute of Houston, are tax deductible. The recent donors include Dr. Linda Driskill and Mr. Frank Driskill; Mr. Stefan J. Ginilewicz; Mr. G. Sierzant.

John Guzlowski’s “Writing the Polish Diaspora” blog (http://writingpolishdiaspora.blogspot.com) is an ongoing commentary on Polish American poets and writers. See also Guzlowski’s Lighting and Ashes blogspot (http://lightning-and-ashes.blogspot.com): wartime Germany as seen by its victims working as slave laborers in the Third Reich. And check out for beautiful photography and excellent articles on Poland’s eastern neighbors Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, and their wartime history.